Gaming Omnivore

Having recently finished the mostly long, not so arduous task of getting the platinum trophy for Assassin’s Creed:Origins so I found myself once again asking myself “What do I feel like playing next?”. The platinum trophy for Origins took approximately 74 hours as I had started playing it back in January after setting out to actually complete an Assassin’s Creed game which I had only played a couple up to that time. Without spending too much time going over and discussing the game I will say that I really enjoyed the game, so much that I spent 70-plus hours completing everything and getting the platinum trophy. I don’t typically spend all of my energy(or sanity) trying to collect every trophy for every game, save for a relatively small group of games that I had loved so much that I was determined to accomplish everything within the game. Now that I had Origins wrapped up, I decided I would set my sights on another game. I am usually “juggling” several different games, on different systems at any given time. I have still been playing MLB The Show 19 pretty steadily since it released over a month ago and had just recently begun playing through Cuphead on my Switch, along with still playing a few rounds of Tetris 99 and Super Smash Bros: Ultimate on a routinely basis.

There are three games in particular that I have had in mind for a while now that I wanted to play through – Persona 5, Final Fantasy XV, and The Witcher 3(Complete Edition). All three of these games being somewhat intimidating as I’m not usually able to play a sprawling, epic (J)RPG game while still playing too many others so I decided I would finish up some other games before devoting myself to a more “demanding” game. I have played a good amount of RPGs over the years since first discovering how satisfying and addicting they can be, especially after finally “figuring out” the strategy in turn-based combat…thanks, Pokemon Red :)…but always had trouble finishing them as I would seemingly always just…not play them for a few days or a couple weeks and would have trouble getting “back into” the control scheme and story.

I woke up one morning and just decided to jump in and start playing The Witcher 3, which I am really liking so far and will make sure to keep playing consistently as the control scheme for the game is a little different and can seem more complex than some games. However, after a couple days I decided that I wanted to try Persona 5 as well and started playing that randomly one morning, the update for SSB: Ultimate in adding Joker to the roster may have “assisted” in that decision as well…I was a little hesitant to begin playing Persona as I was thinking the rumors COULD BE TRUE about a port of Persona 5 coming to the Switch and having a 100+ hour JRPG to play on my Switch to take around with me sounded fun. Well…a few days ago Atlus announced that they were bringing the Persona series to the Switch with Persona 5 Scramble – not a straight port of the game but more of a fighter-type game in the vein of the Dynasty Warriors games. So my decision to play Persona 5 on my PS4 was the correct one. I absolutely love Persona so far and have put about 15 hours or so into it already.

The last few couple days however…I felt like going back and playing through some of my childhood favorite games on my N64. I played Star Wars: Rogue Squadron – still one of my absolute favorite Star Wars games, along with some Star Fox 64 and I also dug out my old copy of Mario Golf which brought back tons of fond memories of summer days gone by. I am still in love with many games on the N64, even ones that my not have aged as gracefully like a lot of early 3d era games did, Goldeneye in particular. I do intend on bringing out my old Gamecube and original Xbox to play some of my all-time favorites like Halo(1 &2), Metroid Prime, and Eternal Darkness. I would like to also play through Timesplitters 2 as well as attempt to finally beat Viewtiful Joe which was more difficult than I could accomplish in past years.

I apologize if there doesn’t seem to be much more to this week’s post than a lengthy recollection of my weekend of playing video games(that IS pretty accurate). Part of my mission with this blog has been simply to sort out the endless rambling about “vidya gaemz”. What games are you currently playing? or what’s a game that you have wanted to play to haven’t gotten around to for one reason or another?

Keep on playing…

Here’s some Persona 5 Scramble news if curious – https://www.gamespot.com/articles/p5s-is-persona-5-scramble-a-warriors-style-action-/1100-6466463/

Right around this time every year, leading up to E3 in June there is endless speculation regarding what games will be announced for Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. This includes brand new series, sequels, along with remastered collections/ports. I thought it would be fun to make a list of the 3 games highest on my wish list for the Nintendo Switch ranging from rumors that have been circulated for a while to “hey, it COULD happen right?”.

Nintendo is still riding high on the success of the Switch and has been busy bringing over titles that gamers may not have gotten the chance to play on previous consoles like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe to franchises that haven’t yet been on a Nintendo system like Diablo 3: Eternal Collection and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. There is also a rapidly growing collection of indie titles on the Switch that is still growing like Rocket League, Undertale and Cuphead(just released a couple days ago). My 3 games I would most like to play on the Switch are all previously released Nintendo games that I think would be excellent on their newest handheld/hybrid console.

Metroid Prime Trilogy – The rumor that Nintendo would bring a (hopefully hd remastered) version of the Metroid Prime Trilogy to the Switch has been around for a little while, and has grown even more prevalent since it was announced that they weren’t satisfied with how the development of Metroid Prim 4 was coming along and decided to restart the process along with Retro Studios who developed the first 3 games. Metroid Prime is one of my absolute favorite games and this would be incredible on the Switch with some updated visuals and standard button controls; the latter being one of the biggest reasons Metroid Prime 3 (along with many other games) was a bit difficult to go back and play. The rumor of this being brought over to the Switch has Metroid fans like myself salivating and would help to ease the disappointment in the announcement that Prime 4 is very likely a couple years away still.

Super Mario Sunshine could be an excellent port to the Switch library

Super Mario Sunshine HD – This is another Gamecube game that I would love to play on the Switch with a few tweaks to the game. I have very fond memories of spending many summer hours collecting Shine Sprites and cleaning up graffiti around Isle Delfino as Mario with the help of FLUDD his water-jet backpack….contraption. I know people that weren’t huge fans of the game and criticized the game for being “gimmicky” in its usage of FLUDD throughout the game, who I suspect were the same ones that accused Super Mario Odyssey of the same thing. Oddly enough, while playing through Odyssey I noted the game did seem to be a spiritual successor to Sunshine. One thing, along with some refreshed graphics I would like to see would be maybe…possibly…an improvement to the camera scheme in the game. I have long said that Mario’s greatest nemesis in his 3d adventures IS NOT Bowser, but rather Lakitu and the often clumsy, awkward camera angles. Nonetheless, Super Mario Sunshine had some of the most creative(and difficult) 3d levels I have played and would love the chance to tackle them and Shadow Mario again on the Switch.

Banjo-Kazooie/Banjo-Tooie HD Collection – A Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie collection is my “it COULD happen…right?” entry on the list, this being a somewhat extreme hypothetical as the characters from the BK games as well as Perfect Dark and Conker’s Bad Fur Day are properties of Rare Ltd. who was bought by Microsoft back in 2002. However, a working relationship between Microsoft and Nintendo starting with cross-play ability for games like Minecraft and Fortnite has increased with players being able to unlock Xbox Live Achievements while playing the aforementioned games on their Switch consoles. There has also been the rumors that Microsoft may be working on bringing aspects of Xbox Live to the Switch. This could be a game-changing(PUN!) event, as Microsoft has the best and most robust online gaming experience out there with Xbox Live and if that infrastructure were to be integrated with Nintendo it could be incredible. Another rumor leading up to E3 is that Xbox’s Games Pass subscription could be made available to Switch users, which would also be an amazing development. So my wish is that as long as Microsoft and Nintendo are maintaining a friendly working relationship to compete with Sony in the gaming universe, could Rare Ltd. be given the green light to re-release some of their N64 classics in a HD remastered package? This is pure speculation(not even that…) but I would gladly fork over the cash to play upgraded versions of the Banjo-Kazooie games as well as Perfect Dark or Jet Force Gemini, another underrated Rare game from the N64. Any games you would like to play again on the Switch? A guy can dream, right?