Monster Hunter

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: June 2019

~ Game Over ~

Castle of Heart (Switch) – I wrote a full review of this one.

Refunct (Switch) – I liked the screenshots, and decided why not spend the $2.50? Well, it’s… an incredibly simple game. Jump across the platforms to the beacon. Watch more platforms rise out of the water, and then jump to the new beacon. Repeat a couple dozen times until complete. It took me about half an hour to 100%, but it was a nice, relaxing game. I’d happily buy a sequel with a stronger focus on puzzles.

Mutant Mudds Super Challenge (Switch) – It’s Mutant Mudds again, but this time it’s hard as nails. More spikes than you can shake a stick at, and way more situations that require pixel-perfect movement and/or timing. Also, bosses that actually get easier as you go. And a fancy new death counter. I died just under 250 times before completing the game. Though I didn’t manage to find even one hidden character. *shrug*

A Hole New World (Switch) – An alright game that I bought because it looks (visually) a lot like Shovel Knight. It plays kind of like a linear Mega Man, where you get a new power from each boss, but you are forced on a track from Stage 1 to Stage 7. Levels are huge and ripe for exploring, but all of your attacks (until the last stage) have weird trajectories, which makes dealing with monsters more cumbersome than it needs to be. Also the final boss has so much life and you have so little life that it feels really unfair, and I could not defeat him. In the end, I’m glad I got this for like 75% off, as I really didn’t like it as much as I was hoping to.

Final Fantasy Adventure (Switch) – I rented this once, waaaaaay back in grade 7, and I think I got to somewhere around Medusa? All I remember about it was walking an infinity symbol around two trees in the desert to make a cave open. It’s a somewhat obtuse game that doesn’t always direct you all that well, and having to constantly switch weapons was annoying, but I would say that I actually quite enjoyed my time with it. It’s a very ambitious Game Boy game, and certainly a lot longer than I expected.

Final Fantasy IX (PS1) – I really like this game, but am honestly a little disappointed by how linear it is. You don’t get even a boat until halfway through disc three! Glad I got around to replaying it, as I’ve never gone back after my first run. I like the chocobo treasure hunting mini-game, but the chocobo hot-and-cold minigame is so tedious if you don’t cheat. The final boss track is so good but I would very much like a version with the weird moaning removed please.

Dragon Quest Builders (PS4) – This is more or less the game that convinced me to buy a PS4, so it makes me sad that I took nearly three years to really dig in and finish it. I played the first two chapters at launch, and then it got lost in the shuffle somewhere. But now I’ve gotten to the end, and what a spectacular ride it was. In fact, I liked it so much that I kept playing for all the trophies, which meant completely replaying three of the game’s four chapters. The in-game speedrun challenges for each chapter are surprisingly fun, and I’m thinking that if I were to try doing a for-real speedrun, this would be my game. But I lack the motivation, equipment, and free time for that kind of thing, so.

~ Progress Notes ~

Pixel Puzzle Collection (iOS) – 45.0% complete

Dauntless (PS4) – My guy is level 22, however much that matters.

Secret of Mana (Switch) – Working through Elinee’s castle

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (Switch) – Apparently I’ve barely played G-rank

Detroit: Become Human (PS4) – On chapter “The Stratford Tower” (about ? of the way)

Picross S3 (Switch) – A little more than halfway through Mega Picross mode

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Switch) – 22% map completion.

Super Mario Maker 2 (Switch) – Made one stage and played through 50 on infinite mode.

Rocksmith (PS4) – Back on the guitar now that school’s out for the summer.

TE’s Top Ten Video Games of 2018

The unthinkable has happened: I’m changing the format of my Game of the Year feature.

In previous years, I’ve always used the caveat “best games I beat in 20XX” as a way to extend my list beyond games released that calendar year. But in 2018, I actually played enough Very Good Video Games released in 2018 that I could make up a top ten (and more!) without extending beyond that time frame. This is a very poor paragraph, I think.

The point is, there were a lot of great games released in 2018, and it took me for-gosh-darned-ever to come up with this list. In fact, I had so much trouble even picking a top ten that I’ve decided not to number them. They’re all spectacular in one way or another, and it may be important to notice that six of them are 2D platformers. Just saying.

HOWEVER! I have maintained the rule that I must have beaten the game for it to qualify. Rest assured that Octopath Traveler and Dragon Quest XI would absolutely be included if I were to relax that particular rule.

That said, I now present to you, in no particular order, TE’s Top Ten Video Games of 2018!

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 – Torna: The Golden Country

I didn’t include Xenoblade Chronicles 2 on my 2017 GOTY list because I didn’t finish it in that year. I figured it would be a shoe-in for a spot on the 2018 list. But then I changed the format, and you’ll never know how much I enjoyed playing that game (Spoiler: LOTS).

Its expansion, however, did come out in 2018, and boy howdy did I ever play the heck out of it! Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna – The Golden Country is a prequel to the main game, set 500 (500?) years prior. This is a stand-alone adventure that takes everything that was great about XC2 and somehow makes it even better. The story is a little more grounded and personal, finishing with a spectacular finale and the longest ending of anything ever. The combat has been tweaked to be a little more engaging and streamlined. The sidequest log has been reimagined as a fun “fan club” of sorts for your party, to make doing those (requisite) sidequests feel more important. Most importantly, it’s a JRPG that takes only about 25 hours to finish, and that’s if you wring every little bit of gameplay out of it like I did. Fantastic game, and I’d love to see Monolith Soft do another smaller game like this.

The Messenger

What more can I say about The Messenger that I haven’t already? I typed up a massive review right after finishing it because I was smitten, and all those feelings are still applicable.

For the TLDR crowd, The Messenger is a retraux 2D platformer that takes inspiration from a plethora of classic games and mashes them all together in a neat, little package. While it starts out as a linear, level-based game where you play a ninja on a world-saving mission, eventually it opens up and allows you to freely explore the entire game world. I greatly enjoy the formula here, but what really makes it click is how tight the controls are. I can’t get over just how perfect it feels to play, and how you eventually get to feel like you’re actually a ninja – bouncing, grappling, and gliding across stages with style and ease. The Messenger is perfectly catered to my tastes in video games, and has earned a solid place as one of my favourite games of all time. Also the soundtrack is mmmmmmmmmm good.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Part of my rationale for not numbering my list this year is because no matter what else happened, Super Smash Bros Ultimate would land at number one. And even though it was largely because of my personal bias, I felt that was unfair to all the other excellent games.

What do you want me to say? It’s Smash! And it’s better than it has ever been! Ultimate addresses pretty much all of my complaints with Smash 4: Classic Mode is (mostly) great again! There’s a huge, wonderful Adventure Mode! Snake and Wolf are back! …That was about it, actually. Ultimate has a lot of content to keep me playing Smash without the need for friends, and that’s what I wanted most. Quite frankly, it’s just nice to finally have a Smash on Switch. It was annoying to have to go back to Wii U when I needed a fix. Plus, being able to take it on the go is nice. Playing with a single Joy-Con actually isn’t all that bad a trade-off for always being able to get in some two-player action.

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon

Again, this is a game that resonated so well with me that I wrote a full review immediately after finishing it. You can go ahead and follow this link to read that if you so desire, or you can just go with the paragraph below to get the gist of it

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is another retraux throwback game, but this one is a direct homage to Castlevania III specifically, rather than classic games as a whole. The gameplay is basically exactly the same as an NES ‘Vania, and you have a party of four characters that are recruited along the way, each of which has different abilities and can be swapped in at any time. I know it makes me sound like a wuss, but one of the things I like most about this game is that it isn’t excruciatingly difficult. It’s not easy by any stretch, but I was able to beat it without liberal use of cheats or savestates. So that’s something. Oh, and of course I had a great time along the way. It’s a fun, colourful action game that really emphasizes all the best things about the classic Castlevania games.

Mega Man 11

Mega Man 11 is plagued by one of those things that really makes me angry at nerds. People who call it bad because “it’s not the same as the NES games” need a firm kick in the teeth. MM11 is a solid game, and shouldn’t be condemned for having its own identity.

But that’s enough bad vibes from me. This is supposed to be an overwhelmingly positive listicle! And wouldn’t you know it, I wrote a full review for this game as well! Only… I haven’t actually gotten around to proofreading and posting it yet. Coming soon! To start rattling off some of the key points, Mega Man 11 does a great job of making the series feel a little more modern. It has a wonderful, cartoony visual style (but less cartoony than Mega Man Powered Up!), the controls are rock solid, and the new cast of robot masters are some of the best and most charismatic in the series. The new “double gear” system adds an interesting new wrinkle to otherwise familiar gameplay, and Rush’s coil and jet modes are mapped to their own buttons! Horray! It’s not the best Mega Man game of all time or anything, but I had a darn good time playing it, and look forward to the inevitable release of MM12.

Spider-Man

Spider-Man has always been my favourite super hero. There’s never been any competiton. Despite that, I’ve skipped pretty much every Spider-Man video game since… Spider-Man 2 on GameCube, I guess? Seems like they’ve all been varying levels of Bad since then.

That all changed in 2018. The newest Spider-Man game, simply titled Spider-Man, was pretty much spot-on as far as what you need to do to make a good game featuring everyone’s favourite wall-crawler. You’ve probably heard people raving about how much fun it is to simply swing around New York, and they’re right! It’s great! That sense of freedom is nearly intoxicating, and 100% of the reason I never used the game’s fast-travel system. The combat is just about as good; while it can be mercilessly difficult, once you really get a handle on it, it flows so very nicely. It seems like many reviewers knocked the forced stealth missions where you have to play as Mary-Jane or Miles, but to be fair, they add some needed variety to the swing-fight-swing-fight formula. It’s also relatively brief for an open-world game; I think I clocked around 20 hours to get my platinum trophy. Excelsior!

GRIS

While I can appreciate “art” games from a distance, it’s not all that often that one actually clicks with me. There has to be something very special about it, and telling a story without words or taking the player on an emotional rollercoaster are not enough.

This is where GRIS comes in. GRIS does both of those things, and it does them well. It also does some platforming, though to a much higher degree than most art games. You have vanishing platforms, a swimming level (that’s actually really good), a level where you invert gravity… all the platformer mainstays, and some other stuff too. It’s pretty fun, and there are even extra collectibles hidden behind the more intense sections. But what GRIS does best is look good. GRIS is so friggin’ pretty, and looks like no other game I’ve seen. Perhaps at a glance, it might resemble other art games, but when you truly look at the watercolor style and the way that it moves, and how fluidly the main character is animated, you lose yourself in it. I don’t know that I’ll actually play GRIS again, but I saved a bunch of screenshots on my Switch, and I often find myself looking at them just to admire how beautiful this game is.

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate

One of the greatest tragedies of human history is that I couldn’t include Monster Hunter World on this list of video games I really like. While it makes Monster Hunter better by adding roughly a million cool quality-of-life improvements, the overall feel didn’t quite gel with me.

And that’s why I have a Switch port of a 2016 3DS game on the list. To be honest, when I started playing Monster Hunter Generation Ultimate, I longed for all the little things that MHW did better, but as I got back into the groove, I realized that this is what I truly wanted. It’s a little more than a port though, as it adds several truckloads worth of new content to the original Monster Hunter Generations, including Valstrax, which is one of the coolest and most deadly creatures in the series. A silver dragon with jet engines on its wings. So cool! Plus, it adds the much-needed feature of playing on the TV to a previously portable-only game. MHW is excellent and I played it a ton, but I’d estimate that I put at least three times as many hours into MHGU, a game that I had technically already played for over 200 hours. …I don’t have a problem…

Kirby Star Allies

There are sometimes things in life that really don’t make sense, things that defy all logic and end up being the exact opposite of what anyone would expect them to be. But that’s a somewhat pessimistic way of looking at Kirby Star Allies.

The newest Kirby game is, by all intents and purposes, the same as the last three main series Kirby games. Oh, sure, it has a neat little helper system reminiscent of the best Kirby game of them all, but on the surface, it’s a stock-standard sequel. But there are also a ton of cool little things that make it unique. I wrote a massive article about some of them. And then you take a closer look and realize that very few games are made with such pure love for their franchise. While it’s not tagged as a special “Xtieth Anniversary” release, Kirby Star Allies is a loving celebration of Kirby’s long and prolific history. It’s a beautiful, creative game that spares no expense in being the best that it can be. Also, you get to play as Marx for the first time ever, which basically makes it my favourite game of all time.

Chasm

These days, the indie games scene basically works in two genres: roguelikes, which I can’t stand, and Metroidvanias, which I have gotten a bit sick of. Not for the sake of there being too many, but rather because I find it very hard to find any that click with me like their namesakes.

And that’s where Chasm comes in. Chasm, to put it bluntly, strives to emulate the basic feel of the exploration-based Castlevania games. And I think it does a splendid job of that! Playing it often brought back fond memories of playing through the GBA ‘Vanias. But it also does more! Like how the maps are partially randomly-generated to keep replays interesting. Or the very satisfying subquest of having to save all the town’s residents to re-open their shops or get helpful rewards. I’ve already played through it twice, and think that’s saying a lot in a world where it seems like the time that I spend playing video games is continually dwindling.

Hororable Mention:

Metal Gear Solid V

Alright, so, I have to make an exception. Because Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is probably one of my favourite games of all time. It deserves a blurb. Yes, it’s very obviously unfinished and can be very rough around the edges, but I don’t think I’ve ever played something that satisfies me so completely. You are constantly unlocking new toys to play with, there are billions of options for how to handle any given situation, a grinding loop that’s weirdly addictive, and an asynchronous multiplayer mode that simultaneously drives me batty and makes me want to excel at it. Easily one of the best games that I’ve played this year, and (probably) the best game that I didn’t play in 2015.

And a bunch of runners-up :

They can’t all be winners, so here’s the list of video games that were up for consideration, but didn’t quite make the cut. I thoroughly enjoyed them all, but didn’t quite go head-over-heels for them. While they may not have been the cream of my crop, they all have something unique and special to offer, and are fully deserving of at least a little attention. Please give them a hand!

Into the Breach
Pokemon Let’s Go
Part Time UFO
Shantae: Half-Genie Hero – Pirate Queen’s Quest
Wario Ware Gold
Agatha Knife
Monster Hunter World
Picross S2
Iconoclasts
The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories

And that’s it, the article is done! There’ll be another one next year!

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up : December 2018

~Game Over~

Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! (Switch) – I don’t like the EXP distribution changes, because it makes trainer battles feel pointless, but other than that? Muah! *Italian chef kiss*

Super Smash Bros Ultimate (Switch) – Much like how the Switch is what the Wii U should have been, this game is exactly what Smash for Wii U should have been. It’s so good.

GRIS (Switch) – I’ve played pretentious indie platformers before, but never one anywhere near as pretty as GRIS. The beautiful, watercolor worlds are reason enough to give this one a go.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up : December 2018

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up : November 2018

~Game Over~

MGSV: The Phantom Pain (PC) – Done but unfinished. Which describes both the game itself and our playthrough. Will we go back? Only time will tell! (But probably not.)

WarioWare Gold (3DS) – An excellent game that I’d love to invest more time into, but it’s just a little tedious to try to hit a target score on 300+ micro-games, you know?

Marvel’s Spider-Man (PS4) – I spent an entire week off work doing very little other than playing this to completion. Do I feel satisfied with how I spent that time? Yes. Absolutely.

Mega Man 6 (Switch) – Rush turns into a jetpack and boxing gloves. Robot pelicans attack by spitting out robot fish. Submarines masquerade as clouds. MM6 is the hottest mess.

Mega Man 9 (Switch) – Would it kill you to turn the health drop rate up a little? Anyway, I’ve now beaten every Classic Mega Man game in 2018. Good job, me! And Merry Megamas to all!

XC2: Torna – The Golden Country (Switch) – Maybe the best DLC expansion I’ve ever played? It’s a complete mini-prequel, as opposed to simply more quests tacked on to the base game.

MechaNika (Switch) – The sequel to Agatha Knife, which I very much enjoyed. This one’s about an alcoholic seven-year-old who wants to build a mech to destroy everything that isn’t cool. Fun!

Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS) – It was time for a replay, I thought, seeing as this month marked OoT’s 20th birthday. It’s a very short game if you ignore heart pieces and gold skulltulas!

~Now Playing~

Save Me Mr. Tako (Switch) – A rare retraux game that pays homage to the Game Boy. So yeah obviously I bought it. Only made it through a handful of levels before distractions tore me away.

Dark Souls (Switch) – Dark Souls is sure great! But man, I just don’t have the time for it.

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (Switch) – Still plugging away at this like once a week or so. G-Rank is a tough cookie, which leaves me at the mercy of online play to make progress.

Super Smash Bros for Wii U (Wii U) – Snuck in a few matches here and there throughout the month. As I post this, there are a mere SEVEN DAYS LEFT until Ultimate.

Star Ocean (SNES) – You have to wonder about a game that, two minutes into your playtime, pits you against a boss who can kill you in ten seconds flat. It’s actually not too bad, though!

Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! (Switch) – I have so many thoughts about this game… But mostly it really makes me wish that I could have an actual pokémon. Pikachu is just so cute!

Minit (Switch) – A Zelda-like where you die and restart every 60 seconds. I don’t know if the experience would have changed appreciably without that particular feature.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – October 2018

TGISGM! Thank goodness it’s scary games ~~Friday~~ month! I’ve been dying all summer because the sun doesn’t go away until like 10PM and I’m too old to stay up much later than that but now it gets dark super early and I can get some SPOOPS GOIN’!

I’m sorry. That was a really weird sentence. Anyway, since it’s that time of year, I’m going to be sort of rating the games I’ve played on how spooky they are. Like I did back in 2016.

~Game Over~

Mega Man 11 (Switch) – Not Spooky – Torch Man’s stage theme is “wandering around the woods at night” which is a little bit spooky, but less so with all the cartoon robots who live there.

Picross S2 (Switch) – Not Spooky – It’s picross. There may be like, a puzzle of a pumpkin in there somewhere, but it wouldn’t even have a face carved into it. No spooks here.

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (Switch) – Not Spooky – Despite being all about monsters -some of which are mildly frightening- there’s nothing particularly spooky here.

Bayonetta (Switch) – Spooky-ish – Freaky lookin’ angels and demons all over, but there’s never really anything scary, you know? Except for the impossibly unbalanced difficulty.

Slayaway Camp (Switch) – Spoopy! – This game does a wonderful job of capturing the spirit of 80’s slasher movies, and then hamming it up to 11. Perfect blend of horror and humour.

Hollow (Switch) – Spooky! – You’re stranded on a derelict spaceship; presumably alone, until you realize there are hordes of mutilated boobie-zombies out to kill you dead! Eek!

Kemono Friends Picross (Switch) – Spooky-ish – It’s very subjective, but I find the whole animal-people theme to be a little creepy. Otherwise, this is way too cheerful to be spooky.

~Now Playing~

Onechanbara Z2: Chaos (PS4) – Spoopy at Best – It’s about zombies and cursed blood and copious gore, but really it’s just too dumb/goofy/cheesecakey to actually be spooky.

Dark Souls (Switch) – Spooky! – Yeah, this one’s a shoo-in for spooks. Have you ever seen the Gaping Dragon? Or any monster from the Painted World of Ariamis? Buuuh. Nightmares!

MGSV: The Phantom Pain (PC) – Not Spooky – There’s that one part with the parasite warehouse that is genuinely creepy and gross, but we passed that chapter months ago.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: September 2018

The age of Mega Man X dominating my gaming time has ended. At least for now. Now, instead of being stuck on a series of action platformers, I’m ears-deep in massive RPGs. Super. At least I was guaranteed to finish all those Mega Mans.

~ Game Over ~

Mega Man X7 (Switch) – If you thought I was down on X5… it looks like a sparkling gem next to this turd. Not even really worth playing just to say you’ve played ‘em all.

Mega Man X8 (Switch) – It’s not amazing, but it stands head and shoulders above X7. Playing it brought back some fun memories of when I first bought a PS2. Ah, such simpler times…

The Messenger (Switch) – After my first playthrough, I think this might fall in line with the way I feel about Mega Man X: it’s as close to perfect as a video game can possibly be.

Final Fantasy XV (PS4) – I finally did it! And exactly a year after my last play session! I gave the disc back to my brother, but I kind of want to get the Royal Edition and keep playing…

The Legend of Zelda (NES) – It’s on my Switch now, so… yeah, of course I played it.

The Silver Case (PS4) – A Japan-only PS1 adventure game by Suda 51, remastered and localized. It’s pretty interesting, and I can absolutely see the genesis of Killer7 in it.

~ Now Playing ~

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (Switch) – I just hit high rank and already there is so much more content than on the 3DS version. Purchase justified!

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (PS4) – Few things feel as purely good as playing a Dragon Quest game. And this one is so got-danged pretty!

WarioWare Gold (3DS) – Whaaaaat a 3DS game in 2018? How even? I was going to skip this, but then my parents got it for me as a birthday gift. Which is awesome because <3 WarioWare.

MGSV: The Phantom Pain (PC) – Hey it’s this again. How many more two-line blurbs am I going to have to write about this friggin’ game? (Probably only one more.)

Picross S2 (Switch) – I could be done, but this time I’m actually playing all the Mega puzzles, too. They can be quite the challenge, which is good because regular picross is too easy.

Dr. Mario (NES) – Now my Switch can play Dr. Mario, so I’m pretty happy!

Frederic: Resurrection of Music (Switch) – I’ve been long intrigued by this, then it went on sale for 65 cents. Verdict: Its heart is in the right place, but I don’t want a touchscreen piano game.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: August 2018

You know, I think I’m really starting to get the hang of this “just stop playing games that you aren’t having fun with” thing. It’s an amazing time-saver! At least, unless the game in question is a Mega Man X game…

~ Game Over ~

Mega Man X4 (Switch) – While I do think it holds up fairly well on a high level, it really makes me long for the gorgeous pixel graphics of the SNES games. What can I say? I’m old.

Super Dungeon Bros (PS4) – At first I thought “This is kinda like Gauntlet! Sweet!” But it’s not the kind of game that’s properly balanced for single-player, so I gave up and deleted it.

Mega Man X Legacy Collection (Switch) – X Challenge is indeed a challenge, as I needed to keep the difficulty firmly on Easy to make my way to the end. (Spoiler: It’s crazy broken.)

Mega Man X4 (Switch) – The previous one was an X playthrough, this one was a Zero run.

Mega Man X3 (Switch) – Another run to gather up some stray “hunter medals” (achievements). Also this time I got the gold armor and Z-Saber, so Kaiser Sigma wasn’t impossibly hard.

Mega Man X5 (Switch) – Despite having pretty good memories of if, I kind of can’t stand Mega Man X5. Imagine that!

Batman: The Telltale Series (PS4) – While I really liked it, I couldn’t help but feel like I would have enjoyed it more as a straight-up animated mini-series instead of a “game.”

Mega Man X5 (Switch) – I played it again to go through Zero’s story. Why? Masochism.

Mega Man X6 (Switch) – This is generally considered to be an absolute trash fire of a game, but after this playthrough, I’ve come think it’s actually quite a bit better than tedious ol’ X5.

Legend of Kay Anniversary (PS4) – I got this in a bundle last year, and it seemed like it would be a nice, breezy adventure. It is those things! But it is also hella boring, so I deleted it.

Mega Man X5 (Switch) – I needed to see all three endings to earn a hunter medal…

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: August 2018

Once More Unto the Hunt, Dear Friends

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate is out! Officially released on Tuesday, I was hoping to stay up slightly too late to play it on Monday, since it was supposed to go live on the eShop at 11PM. But it didn’t quite work out that way for some reason, and actually went live at 2AM. I like to think it was Capcom/Nintendo helping make sure I went to bed on time.

The point is: there’s a Monster Hunter on Switch now. Life is perfect.

I’m not entirely sure what else to write about this. I never expected Capcom to actually localize this game (because why bother when Monster Hunter World is already raking in mad skrilla?). To that end, I hadn’t ever really dug deep into what kind of new things they’ve updated it with. There’s the cover monster, whom I know only as “Jet Dragon.” I have actually (and unsuccessfully) hunted him before, via the demo of the Japanese version that came out like a year ago. I also know vaguely of the new final boss who I think is a giant mantis that pilots a mecha made of scrap. Not unlike the old final boss who is a squid that wears power armor made of skellingtons.

Monster Hunter has gotten weird.

Watching the intro movie, it seems that my old nemesis Barioth has returned as well. My short playtime thus far has not revealed any other additions to the monster roster.

Oh, it’s important to note that this is an enhanced port of Monster Hunter Generations. You know, that 3DS game that I’ve already poured like 200 hours into? If it were a vanilla port, I’d probably skip it. This Ultimate version, however, adds (presumably) a bunch of new (and returning) monsters and also G-Rank hunts. Maybe other things, too? In theory, that means it has roughly 50% more content (quests) than the base game, and that new content will be ultra-mega-hard. Which is great!

The huge twist with this release is that you can import your progress from the 3DS game to give yourself a head-start and jump right into the new content (assuming you’re that far). I was absolutely torn on this feature. On one hand, it would be nice to bring over all the hard work I poured into MHG. On the other hand, I kinda want to go through it all again, because it’s fun! This is one of those Tough Life Decisions that adults warn you about when you’re growing up.

In the end, since I first launched the game while on the bus to work, I had no access to my 3DS and started a new character. I can always import good ol’ Jenna at some other point in time, should I feel the need. For the time being, I will move forward with Velvet, who I named after the protagonist of Tales of Berseria because I was drawing a blank on more interesting names. I would like to mention that I find naming characters in this kind of game intensely stressful. It would be so much easier if I’d just play as a male character…

And so that’s that. I don’t think I’ll have much else to say about MHGU. It’s Monster Hunter. I love it. I will play it obsessively until December 7. Some old song and dance.

Smash Bros Direct 8-8-18

Yesterday, I witnessed evidence that we indeed live in the brightest timeline. But we’ll have to build up to that.

Among other things, yesterday was the day that Nintendo aired a big, beautiful Nintendo Direct focused solely on Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Despite the fact that I’m already 100% on-board for the new Smash, I was a little bit concerned about what could be revealed in this presentation. You know, given some of the more questionable design decisions in Super Smash Bros for Wii U. But it all turned out great! Everyone is here and everything is great!

I won’t ponder everything that they showed off, but I am going to discuss some of the things that I found the most interesting and/or hype-generating.

Castlevania – So the Direct starts off by revealing that Simon Belmont is now a fighter. Okay, cool. That’s literally all I needed. A++ presentation. Thank you and good night.

Then they go on to show off this sweet new Dracula’s Castle stage, and that Richter Belmont is also going to be a playable fighter, as an Echo of Simon. Okay! Super! Really, you had me at Simon. Then they show off all the cool monsters that will appear in Dracula’s Castle, and that Dracula himself will show up and do the traditional Dracula boss fight from all those Castlevania games that he’s in. Guys really you have done a wonderful job. THEN they show how there are going to be over 30 music tracks from the Castlevania series in the game. Also there’s going to be a Death’s Scythe items that instantly kills fighters with high enough damage, and Alucard is an assist trophy character.

I’m dying now. Dying of happiness. Castlevania is one of my favourite video game franchises and it just invaded Super Smash Bros in a major way. Thank you, Mr. Sakurai, for giving me this. Simon is going to be my new main. Sorry Ike, but there’s a new beefcake in town.

But! The cherry on top here is that when they showed off all the monsters that can appear in Dracula’s Castle, there was a shadow that was noted only as ?????.

You know what that is? It’s friggin’ Dracula-Kun! Yes, the main character of the Castlevania parody series Boku Dracula-Kun -also known as Kid Dracula or Baby Alucard- is in Super Smash Bros. I could never have even dreamed of something so wonderful happening. There are only two other things in the world that could make me this happy, and one has absolutely nothing to do with video games. So yes, I’m pretty damn stoked on this new Smash game.

Shovel Knight – Shovel Knight is in Smash too! Oh, happy day! …but he’s just an assist trophy? Oh… Well that’s a little disappointing. But Shovel Knight is still in Smash! He’s now officially reached the Legendary tier of video game characters. Did you know that Shovel Knight is my favourite anything of everything?

Chrom and Dark Samus – Two popular characters that I don’t really have much of affinity for, being introduced as Echo fighters. Chrom seems to be a faster version of Ike, which is… I’ve always been fond of Ike the way he is. He’s so immensely powerful that I don’t mind the lack of speed. And Dark Samus… whatever. She’s cool, but I’ve sadly grown out of Samus. She was my main in Smash 64 and Melee, but those days are behind us.

Stages – New Donk City Hall is the other new stage that they showed off in this Direct, and it looks pretty sweet. What really needs to be mention is that there are 103 stages in Smash Ultimate. One hundred and three. That… that may be too many. I already had a tough time picking a stage from Melee’s 29 options. Probably I’ll just pick Dream Land from Smash 3DS all the time because that’s the best stage ever. Oh! But there’s a stage morph option now that makes the game flip between two stages, which is neat. I would love if it could just morph into anything at any time, but I can see how that might be unfeasible.

Final Smash Meter – This is a feature that needed to be there from the point where Final Smashes were first introduced (Brawl). Instead of breaking a Smash Ball, a meter builds during the fight, and when it fills, you get a Final Smash! It’s less powerful than the Smash Ball version, but that’s okay! This is how every other fighting game with equivalent super moves works, so it’s weird that Smash Bros hadn’t incorporated it until now.

I would like to take a little sidebar here to reiterate how brilliant the Fake Smash Ball is. I love it.

Monster Hunter – Smash 4 had a couple Monster Hunter costumes for the Mii Fighters as DLC, but Smash Ultimate is ramping it up a bit with… Rathalos? Just Rathalos? Apparently he appears as a boss, and also an assist trophy, but they didn’t really elaborate on anything else. The stage on which he is a boss is clearly based on the Ancestral Steppe map from Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, but they didn’t call it out at all. And does that mean that there will be a Hunter as a playable fighter? Really, the Rathalos clip just left me with more questions than anything. Regardless, I am jazzed that Monster Hunter is now officially a part of Smash.

Other stuff – The menu seems to be… slightly better than Smash Wii U’s awful mess? It still looks like a big mess, but at least it’s laid out a little better. I can still see myself getting lost trying to find anything that isn’t the main Smash mode, so that’s not great. I’m curious about the mystery mode that they censored out for this video, but not so much that I feel the need to speculate. And: It looks like they fixed Classic Mode! It’s just like it used to be in Smash 64 and Melee, but tailored to each character! It remains to be seen if it’ll be fun again or not, but it’s looking good so far! Hopefully that dreadful Master Fortress has been trashed.

King K. Rool – I’m all for adding more villains to Smash (because you can only have heroes beat each other up for so long), but I personally don’t give a single flip about K. Rool. Here’s a third Donkey Kong series character that I’ll never play as. Where the heck is Dixie already? K. Rool’s reveal trailer was absolutely the best thing, however.

Lastly, for your viewing pleasure, an embedded video of the presentation I just typed over one thousand words about:

Nintendo @ E3 2018

This is it: the big collection of video game commercials that I’d been aching for since March. Okay, yeah, with that qualification, it’s obvious that I was 90% in it just for the Smash. But hey, there were other neat things, too! Let’s take a look at the sentence or two that I had to say about them!

Daemon X Machina – OOH ANIME MECHS. I LIKE. It’s like the best parts of Xenoblade X but made by Platinum and Suda51. (Except not. It’s actually Marvelous making it.)

Xenoblade 2 DLC – Speaking of Xenoblade… Hey it’s that promised story expansion DLC for the game that I’ve still only seen like 50% of. It’s a prequel with a new titan, I guess? I don’t know, the narration was Japanese and my phone was sitting on a stand that obscured the subtitles. Obviously I’m going in on it, because Xenoblade 2 is freakin’ sweet and yeah I’ll take any more of it that they’re willing to give me.

Pokémon Let’s Go – No new information here. Just Reggie pimping the lame Pokéball Plus accessory. But it does give you a free Mew, so…

Super Mario Party – I don’t have friends, so I don’t care. And even if I did, I’m sure they’d just dump all over it instead of playing with me. Dig the logo, though.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses – It’s Fire Emblem on Switch, which is so cool, which I’m down with. But I have played exactly one Fire Emblem game ever, and I have my doubts that I’ll be adding this one to the list any time soon.

Fortnite – Nope. Don’t care. I do like how not-gritty it is, though. And cool that it’s out NOW.

Overcooked 2 – I’ve heard many times that Overcooked is great, but again, with the lack of friends and all.

Killer Queen Black – Like, seriously. No friends. Okay, one friend. But that’s still not really enough to care about multiplayer party games.

Hollow Knight – Ah! A single-player game! There we go! But I’ve played it already, so… oh, what? It’s available today? And only $17? Hey, I mean, it’s not like I paid money to play it the first time…

Octopath Traveler – New demo with carry-over data… but I really don’t have time to fit that in at the moment. I don’t even know that I’ll be able to make time for the full game come July.

Sizzle reel – Mostly things shown at other presentations, or that are already out, or are getting DLC soon. Nothing that made me shriek with joy. Dark Souls still doesn’t have a release date, and Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate made an appearance. Hi, 5 seconds of Mega Man 11!

Super Smash Bros Ultimate – There was a lot to process here, so rather than trying to clean it up, here’s my stream-of-consciousness notes, hastily typed as I was watching: Oh Sakurai, you joker. Link has new moves! Zelda is Link Between Worlds style!! (<3) Ice Climbers are back! Pokémon trainer! Lucas! Ryu! Ganondorf looks better than ever! Cloud! SNAKE IS BACK! Pichu! Toon Link AND Young Link! Wolf! MEGAMAN! Every fighter ever is back! This is amazing news! BIG BLUUUUE! Daisy?? (Aw, dangit.) Inkling seems awesome, and I love the Squid Sisters assist trophy. But where’s Off The Hook? Bomberman assist trophy? Nice! Ooh and a deadly Fake Smash Ball! GOOD LORD RIDLEY MURDERED MARIO AND MEGA MAN.

Verdict: Super Smash Bros Ultimate is out on December 7 and that’s all that matters. Everything else was gravy at best, or I just didn’t care. Smash is all I wanted from this presentation. It’s all I wanted from this E3. And by God, they delivered!