What was that ending?

A massive cliffhanger that we had to live with for a decade. 😄

Hopefully Act 3 is better.

Quick warning that you lose access to the overworld during 13.3, so it’s a good idea to use a separate save.

Finished Momodora: Moonlit Farewell!

Was almost done with it last week so I don’t have much to add. A short (~6h) but very fun metroidvania.

Finished Guns of Fury!

Metal Slug meets metroidvania, and it works surprisingly well! The developer really did a good job mixing elements of both games.

It does have some rough edges with the map design and lack of fast travel spots, I spent way too much time running around trying to figure out where I’m supposed to go, but the combat is fun enough to keep it entertaining even during those times.

Playing Ever 17: The Out of Infinity (part of the Ever 17/Never 7 Double Pack)!

I was expecting something more intense given the “trapped in a collapsing underwater theme park” premise, but there’s a surprising amount of downtime in this one. But I’m not complaining since theses moments are being well used to develop the cast.

The mysteries keep growing, and with less than 24h before the park collapses I imagine I’m getting to the meat of the plot. Let’s see if I can get at least my first ending this weekend.

Apologies for the double-post, but this is relevant: Monitors Unboxed posted a comparison video including several handheld devices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKFYGv0Pb98

What I meant by “classic” is an “official” option to stick to 3-lap tracks, which apparently have a lot of fans.

This controversy is pretty much “You’re having fun in a different way from what we intended. This is not allowed so we blocked it.”.

Which is a very “Nintendo” thing to do. But hopefully they’ll change things in the future and give a “classic” option or something similar.

Defect is my favorite too, and the one I had the most succcessful Heart runs.

ORBS GO BRRR

Mummy Demastered is a small game

I can give you more short (~5h or so) metroidvania recommendations if you’re interested in that kind of game.

Should I play rest of them too?

I only played the last two Momodoras and didn’t feel the need to go back to the older ones for the rest of the story. I’d suggest playing Reverie first anyway since it’s a prequel and generally seen as the best one.

The Mummy Demastered has been on my wishlist, so sad to hear about the issues.

It’s not a horrible game or anything, but there’s so many amazing metroidvanias nowadays that it’s hard to think of reasons to recommend it over other options.

Momodora sounds good, but aren’t there like tons of Momodora games?

Not really, when people talk about Momodora they’re usually talking about this game and the previous one, Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight.

There’s three more games, but they’re are simpler, very short games (1-2h) from early in the developer’s career, with the first two being free on Itch.

Finished Never 7: The End of Infinity (part of the Ever 17/Never 7 Double Pack)!

Decent for its age. It’s romance/mystery focused but adds some interesting sci-fi ideas in the final stretch.

Its biggest problem is that all “main” routes follow the same basic formula, so they get very repetitive after a while. Two characters (Yuka and Izumi) also get “secondary” routes that changes things a bit, but neither adds anything important to the main plot and I think I’d have been happier with the game if had skipped those.

Finished The Mummy Demastered!

I can’t recommend this one due to some terrible design choices.

Plataforming sections gets very frustrating due to infinite respawning enemies that can knock you down. Health not recovering on save spots (forcing you to “farm” nearby enemies/objects to recover) is a stupid time waster. There’s also the death mechanic, which didn’t bother me too much but I have heard from others that can lead you to situations where it’s almost impossible to continue, since when you die you lose all your powerups until you defeat your “corpse” - which can be quite far from your last save.

It’s a shame, because the visuals are great, the soundtrack is amazing, and it generally feels good to play.

Playing Ever 17: The Out of Infinity (part of the Ever 17/Never 7 Double Pack)!

Well, this one has a much stronger start than Never 7, and seems to be more in line with Uchikoshi’s later works. The cast is trapped in an underwater amusement park after a disaster, and has to try to figure out how to escape from there alive.

Very hyped to see where this goes.

Playing Momodora: Moonlit Farewell!

Now this is a great metroidvania. There’s some minor annoyances (slow initial movement, fast travel takes a while to unlock), but nothing that significantly affected my enjoyment of the game.

I love its pixel art and animations, the soundtrack is good, and both exploration and combat feel great. One thing I should mention is that this is fairly linear for a metroidvania, which can bother some people.

More information so people can make proper purchase decisions is always good. The current screen may be fine for most, but there’s people who are very sensitive to this type of slow screen and will prefer to wait for a new hardware revision.

How does it compare to other handhelds, though

It’s a significantly more expensive handheld, but I’ve found a video with a comparison to the ROG Ally and it makes the Switch 2 screen look really bad.

Source is a page on Facebook so I can’t vouch for its veracity, but it matches multiple reports we’re seeing from trusted sources that the screen is laggy - besides the ones mentioned in the OP link we also got the Digital Foundry guys saying the same in their review.

Nintendo probably uses more than one screen manufacturer.

It may be capped at a 100%, they are so cheap, I never bothered testing

From what I’ve read there’s no cap on augments, but apparently here’s a maximum of 9999XP per kill.

Now, the real question… Elma amiibo when? 😃

I ended up spending the $40 or whatever to get the Mio and Noah Amiibo, and they are sitting on my desk right now.

I also got those, I love Xenoblade too much. The only Amiibo’s I’ve ever bought are the Noah/Mio and Pyra/Mythra pairs.

Should probably grab a Shulk one as well since they still appear to be available.

Fairly solid for its age. It’s more of a romance/slice-of-life but has some neat sci-fi ideas, in particular in the “Cure” route that acts as the main story ending. I can see why people mention it as an inspiration for games like Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate.

The main issue is that most of the routes follow the same formula, so they get boring after a while.

Anyway, quite curious for Ever 17 now since everyone says it’s miles better than the first game - Never 7 has a 6.73 rating on VNDB while Ever 17 has a 8.45.

Slow week, wasn’t very motivated for some reason. Otherwise I’d probably have finished both games below.

Playing Never 7: The End of Infinity (part of the Ever 17/Never 7 Double Pack)!

Followed the plan I mentioned last week - did a first “blind” run which got me the Yuka route, then found a nice guide to help me get the other routes.

I’ve cleared all the “main game” routes (Yuka, Haruka, Saki, Kurumi, Izumi “Cure” and Izumi), and completed the CG library. Only thing left now is the “Append Story”, an extra option in the main menu that shows up after you clear Yuka’s route, which appears to be her POV of the story.

Playing The Mummy Demastered!

Played less than 2h this week. Map is around 50%.

Game is mostly good, but has the annoying tendency (reminiscent of old-school Castlevanias) of having enemies positioned to “trip” you and make you fall down when you’re doing plataforming sections. :/

I checked out Robotics;dash Elite form the library again and gave it about an hour. I LOVE Steins;gate, but it’s been hard getting into other visual novels in the Science Adventure Series. Maybe I’m just not in a reading mood lately.

SciAdv VNs are very different from each other, liking some of them but not others is fairly common. And as much as as love Robotics;Notes that one is a very slow burn, it’s mostly a slice-of-life story with some mystery and sci-fi sprinkled on.

From what I can gather it’s a new standalone game taking place in the same universe as their mobile game (also called “Atelier Resleriana”, but with a different sub title).

Interesting about the Yumia game, I guess it’s the one to skip.

You’re going to find a lot of people saying “solid JRPG, bad Atelier” for Yumia, and I think that’s the perfect summary for the game. There’s the technical problems that still need to be adressed, but the developer has been consistently pushing updates so hopefully most will be fixed eventually.

Also, since we’re talking about this series - we just got a trailer for a new game, which looks to be more of a “classic” Atelier game but this time including Shop management! Hope that part of the game works well, I remember very fondly my time playing Recettear.

Finished Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land!

I enjoyed my time with the game, but it’s a definitely a flawed one.

It’s buggy and poorly optimized, and it lacks the relaxing feeling and exceptional crafting systems that people expect when the see the “Atelier” name. I think the “Mixed” rating it has on Steam is excessive, but I can understand why some people are not happy with the game.

I really liked the worldbuilding and and exploration aspects. The crafting system is serviceable and better than most non-Atelier games, but honestly among the weakest in the series. Yumia is great and I hope to see more of her in future games. Story is fine, but too sparse for a game that tries to have more focus on that aspect.

Playing Never 7: The End of Infinity (part of the Ever 17/Never 7 Double Pack)!

After a lot of headaches with shipping and customs I finally got this. It’s a pack of two very old VNs (Never 7 is from 2000 and Ever 17 is from 2002) from the same author as the Zero Escape series which is one of my all-time favorite VN series.

You can clearly see the age of the game in the technical aspects - background and art look dated, and the low quality of the voices in Never 7 is definitely bothering me (thankfully I booted Ever 17 and they sound much better there). One thing I noticed is that this VN has a lot of choices - I took a peek and found a flowchart for the game and it looks very complex, so I’m most likely just doing an initial “blind” run then using a guide to get the remaining endings. 😃

As for the story, there’s already some hints of sci-fi elements (potentially time travel?) from the earlier scenes, with the protagonist having strange “premonitions” for the future. The main negative so far is that I don’t like most of the cast, but let’s see if they’ll grow on me over time.

Playing The Mummy Demastered!

Current side game. So far it’s a solid metroidvania.

Looks like this will be a very short game, I’m at ~30% of the map with a little more than 1h of gameplay. But I got this on a sale so this doesn’t bother me too much.