This Week’s Topics:
Wherein I discuss acquisitions (get used to me saying that every week, folks), and Nintendo’s war on games preservation.
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If it is not obvious by now, while I do portray and present myself as a calm and rational member of society who wishes to help and assist others whenever possible, I actually consider myself to be something of a degenerate. I adore things that I genuinely know “normal people” who view as unacceptable, and while I know well enough to keep these things out of regular conversation, I just cannot help myself and get genuinely giddy when I find something incredibly messed up. Whether it be a story about murderous trans-dimensional flesh monsters, a show wherein a woman is forced to eat an omelet filled with feces, poop, and semen, or this awful censored header image, which you can find by digging through the archives on ONAT’s Patreon.
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So, a new build of Press-Switch came out, utterly surprising me, and as is always the case with releases of this game, or its sister title Student Transfer, it shot straight up on my priority list. Except this time I am actually going to review this latest build V0.5a, even though it is largely a revision that does not have most of the content, as, due to coding issues and a desire to change the introduction, the game needs to basically be remade. That would be enough to dissuade me in most cases, but screw it, I’ve wanted to review this game for almost 4 bloody years, and I’m gonna do it! At least, after I put out this massive Rundown.
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It’s kind of surreal to be playing a new 2D Metroid game like this. I mean, it’s been 13 years since Zero Mission last scratched that itch, and it’s been a decade since the series had a genuinely good game. Still, after so much clamoring and waiting, a new classic-style entry in the series was finally released. A remake technically, but one so thoroughly rebuilt and reworked that it may as well be an entirely new title. And as a new title, it is good, but not without its faults. (more…)
It just occurred to me that I do not play handhelds like most normal people do. From what I can gather, most people tend to play handheld game systems while they are raised to the middle of their chest, and bend their head down slightly while doing so, but are also prone to just playing them while in bed, or laying down on the couch or some such thing. Whereas I find both of those to be uncomfortable positions, and instead always play handheld games with the handheld placed near by lap or with my arms resting on a desk while I play, similar to how I play games with a controller. And I have been doing this since I got my GameBoy Advance back in second grade. (more…)
Considering I have a website primarily dedicated to game reviews and news, it should probably come as a surprise that I never so much as touched a Playstation 2 with my own hands. I had opportunities to play the system at a friend’s house when I was a little kid, but I never took advantage of that and instead preferred watching them play. It is the best selling video game console of all time, was the prominent one during a bulk of my childhood, and the fact that I never did, and likely never will, play a game on the thing just makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong. Then again, I sometimes feel that way about existing, so I’m probably just a bit of a fool for getting worked up over such a semantic thing.
Recently, discussions have begun about how 2017 might just be one of the best years in video gaming, as the first quarter of the year was home to an excess of stellar titles. However, I can’t help but find any of those claims to be a bit overly presumptuous, as the year is still beginning. But if people were instead talking about how Q1 was the best quarter in the history of gaming, then that it both entirely justifiable, and those people are probably right considering the number of great games that came out in those 90 days. The only one of which I played was Dragon Quest VIII… Man, I am really disconnected from the cultural zeitgeist. (more…)
A few months ago, I reviewed Dragon Quest VII, and after forty hours with the game, my thoughts could only be generously described as mixed. It certainly made me question of affection towards the series and how I would feel about Dragon Quest VIII, but after playing it for only a short while, I realized that Dragon Quest VIII is something of an antithesis to its predecessor, and I’ve never been happier to use that word. (more…)
After several months of anticipation and near weekly coverage on my weekly news segment, Pokemon Sun and Moon finally arrived to mark the 20th anniversary of this series. One that I hold very closely to myself and ultimately love, but have become incredibly critical of, as the shortcomings of a series become excruciatingly evident after playing every game in the mainline series (except for Platinum). But I’m not going to talk about those right now. For now, it’s time to talk about Pokemon Moon. (more…)
Despite not being the biggest fan of the series, and only having played through five games prior to this one, I actually hold a special place for Dragon Quest. It is a lighthearted and joyful RPG series with memorable scenarios, excellent designs, lovely music, and simple yet enjoyable gameplay. So when a new one came out, under the guise that its success will dictate whether or not the series will continue undergoing the lengthy and difficult process of localization, I naturally picked it up, got my hopes up, and… well, I’m incredibly disappointed, let’s put it that way. (more…)
So, I announced that I was going to release a revised version of one of my stories, Psycho Shatter, on September 11th. Well, progress has been slower than anticipated, and it will actually not be done until September 15th of so. I underestimated the workload, and want to make sure I am happy with the final product by editing it once more. Sorry that my output on that front has been so lacking as of late. (more…)
So, this week I tried Killer Is Dead, and it made me realize that I simply cannot play Character Action Games that implement a grading system, meaning most of them, as if you get anything beneath the highest score, well, you are just fucking up. But not just playing the game, oh no, you are going against the developer’s intentions and are objectively playing the game wrong, and by extension you are ruining an experience by being too shit to handle a challenge that the title very clearly stats should be no problem for normal people. I honestly don’t know if I hate it more than a lives base system, as that method is a vile outdated archaic disgusting loathsome evil punishment based system that was implemented in order to inspire mastery artificially increase game length. But if you dare waste a resource as precious as life, you probably don’t deserve to have your own, you miserable little sack of maggot infested cum, mixed with urine, STD infested blood, Ebola, and bug shit (more…)
I honestly forgot about this post until the last minute, and did not prepare any sort of pseudo-witty banter. As such, I am just going to jump into this week’s Nigmabox Rundown, which I have titled “Let Nintendo’s Train Penetrate Your Butthole, Dummy!” I’m glad that I’ve been doing this for about two years now… (more…)
Man do I have a lot of little things to say for this pre-review thingie. Pokemon X was evil and consumed 300 hours in the game itself, and about 25 more because spreadsheets. I originally was not going to play this remake until the New 3DS came out, but I did not have anything that pressing to play. Ruby and Sapphire were the first Pokemon games I really got into, and they terrified the hell out of me, because I did not understand how to video game. Pokemon being annualized is something I dislike conceptually as the base needs a lot of refinement that I could write out if requested, and will mention in this review. (more…)
Oh boy, remember when I was going to go through and review every Kirby game ever made? No? Yeah, that’s probably a good thing. Point is that I like myself some Kirby and played nearly every game starring the pink puff ball, so its only natural that I’d pick up his latest adventure when Best Buy decided that a buy one get one free sale for first party Nintendo 3DS titles was something they’d have stock for.
It is rather pointless for a little slice of nowhere blog with only a small number of views to do a summarization of the E3 press events, especially when they were not watching them live due to real life events, such as work. But I got home to catch the latter two, and catch up with the former before Nintendo did their event and managed to get everything done before Tuesday’s end… well after everybody and their brother did their own version of this, and often far better than my assorted ramblings that are made all the dumber by the insertion of anime screencaps. It’s Nigmabox’s third annual Super E3 Rundown!
So, I just barely have enough for a post this week, as it is the middle of January and people are still getting back into the swing of things after a holiday break. I do not have enough time to come up with a creative intro, as I’ve been trying to plow through the insanely large Assassin’s Creed IV. 27 hours in and I’m 39% done. I like myself a fine long game, but this is utterly nutterly buttery, Ubisoft. Other than that… screw it, wait for my review of that after Just Cause 2 and Marlow Briggs.
So, you are launching the first original title in your flagship franchise on a highly successful platform, naming it a sequel and successor to one of the most beloved games of all time, and try to reinvent the series at the same time… All in a little over two years worth of development… What could possibly go wrong? Well, plenty to be quite honest. In fact, I was underwhelmed when the title was revealed, in part due to the art style utilized by the game, and in part due to how it looked a bit like Nintendo was pulling a bit of a fast one with a not super polished final product.
Tomorrow, assuming this is being read on the seventeenth, is my Birthday! Meaning that I’m going to be nineteen… okay! Yes, I’ve finally reached the point where my age going up means little to nothing, as there are no major benefits that I can receive until I am a bitter old man who throws bread crumbs at children because he’s bored and it was a Thursday. Yep, college, job, house, and then I’m basically done for life, with this blog being the best thing I’ve ever done with it… along with a couple crappy ebooks nobody will read. After all, the odds of me getting married are like finding a shiny Pokemon in a speed run. That, and being in a room filled with children just the other day and being annoyed at their appearance sums up my thoughts on them pretty well. (more…)
I was originally going to publish a post about how much I adore Pokemon, along with my history with it, but I did not feel like editing that wall of text, as I can summarize my thoughts on the series with this: I bought six Pokemon plushies, have a box of old toys, seven volumes of the manga, and once walked about a mile as a four-year-old to get Pokemon toys. I freaking adore the franchise, and it is probably the most influential piece of media I’ve ever been exposed to, as without Pokemon I would not be remotely the same person. So of course I bought Pokemon X, and played it for a good 130 hours, with a couple dozen left to go. However, I want to be somewhat timely.
Gotta keep on posting stuff or else I will be set on fire by the God King! Row Row Write The Power! (more…)
The general rule of thumb with reviews is that you consume the media to a state of completion before writing them. Well, I’m pretty much breaking that rule, but only because I’ve given this game 60 hours and would prefer it to stop and not experience the final eighth. Some might call this laziness and a lack of devotion to a hobby, I call it my review of 60 blasted hours of a game.
This is the boring time of year where I’m sorta tempted to make this a once every two weeks thing, but… I had enough for a page, so I’ll just start it off after knocking out how Persona 5’s web domain has been registered, which says little about the game’s release, seeing as how it’s been 6 years and no real info about it. Yep, this sure is the soft time, but I like to release content and do not want to edit Raiyne’s Whimsy.
Fire Emblem was a series that I, along with countless others who naturally learned about it when it threw characters into Super Smash Brothers, but never really paid much attention to. However, as what was potentially the final game in the series dropped a few months ago showed that if you remove permadeath, the series can sell enough to justify its production costs in North America alone. Not sure if I have a ton to say that hasn’t been said, but I dumped 90 hours into this thing, and should probably review a game from 2012 not that the year’s halfway over. (more…)
Well, numerous sites have offered their fast paced summaries of the most recent Nintendo Direct, but I’ve never taken “your opinion isn’t needed” as a valid reason not to talk about something, unless the opinion itself was lame on a personal level. So taking the amount of concentrated happy Nintendo injects into my eye sockets, time to be a snarky badger about it. Also not include hyperlinks beyond Destructoid’s Round-up.
You know, I didn’t even realize this until I was nearly done with this title, but Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door was pretty much the singular game that made me think of games as something more than things to mess around with. And as a child, made me fully consider them an artform. It was one of my favorite titles growing up. Hell, even before I knew what a fan fic was, I wrote one about that game. So I naturally had high expectations with this game, and suffice to say, it does not pass all of them.
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Note: I re-reviewed this game in 2016. Please disregard this original review.
I will not attempt to hide the fact that I loved 999, or to give the game its revised title, Zero Escape Volume 1: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors. A title given because nobody had copies after the initial shipments, and they wanted to make it more immediately connected to its sequel. Either way, I absolutely adored the game despite the entry barrier being about eight feet tall and covered in spiders. However, I got to the land of tangential learning by mixing in scientific theories in with one of the my favorite stories I’ve heard in recent memory. That aside, it still got coo-coo up the nutters by the end, and had to be explained through a Q&A with a creator. So how does the sequel hold up, pretty damn well, but I have reasons after the jump!
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I always feel bad when someone talks about how a title is a spiritual successor to a beloved classic, when I do not know much of anything about the original title. Sure, I played the demo of Guardian Heroes, but I found it to be a bit too slow for a beat-em-up. However, I still preordered it. Why? Because Atlus is the kind of company who would rather understock than overstock, and it was $30 now, or $50 later. And it came with a CD and neat box, so that at least supplies the cushion. Yet, as someone who has little experience with anything like Code of Princess, what do I think of it? Well, let’s just say I’m a bit torn on the subject.
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Note: I re-reviewed this game in 2017. Please disregard this original review.
Ubisoft, what the hell were you thinking with this title? It is odd enough that you would decide to release a 2D platformer, a sub-genre that has been reduced to downloadable titles unless it stars an Italian plumber, at retail for $60. But you release it on the busiest day of the busiest month in the industry? On the same day as your own Assassin’s Creed Revelations? You developed an engine to make this game, so you were trying to toss it into the lion’s den? Well, joke’s on you, this game not only survived the lions, but it crashed into your office looking for more work. This is Rayman Origins, my favorite 2D platformer of this generation, if not all of time! (more…)
