I’ve got to recommend Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. One of the most legendary games in the series for its sheer amount of content. It might feel a bit dated if you’ve played World or Rise, but still good

Monster Hunter is a great example of a series with quality sequels. They always add some new, interesting mechanics, trim the fat from the previous iteration, and add new content while still keeping the core gameplay exactly the same. There have been some exceptions, but generally every MH game before they split the dev teams had been an improvement on the last. Even when they cut the swimming from 3U to 4. It was a system that most players didn’t enjoy, and 4 had so many great new additions like mounting that it hardly felt like anything was missing.

That said, one of the main criticisms you’ll hear from players is the “ultimate” edition being the same game with just some new hunts tacked on. Or even that the base version isn’t worth it and the ultimate version is the “real” game. Nowadays they do expansions instead, which I think players generally find more palatable

Granted, I haven’t played the original Dragon’s Dogma in like 10 years and I’m watching this on a small phone screen, but if you told me this was DD1 footage, I would believe you. I really don’t see the difference. That said, DD1 also looked awesome and I did enjoy it for the most part… I think it was just missing something to be truly great. I’m just not sure what that is. Back then, I thought it was multiplayer. As a huge Monster Hunter fan, DD felt like a great competitor or rival (despite both being from Capcom) and so I just thought multiplayer was a no-brainer. Now, though, I really appreciate single player experiences more and more, so I’m not sure that was really it. Maybe it was the Pawn system just didn’t do it for me or maybe it was that the quests didn’t flow.

Either way, I think I’m excited to give DD2 a try. The classes in DD1 were very cool, especially the advanced classes. Looking forward to see what this game has to offer

Not sure what you mean, but it sounds like you just don’t care because it doesn’t affect your choice. I wonder how you will feel if one day your party’s candidate finally crosses your line

“There is no choice.” “You do not have a choice.” Classic catchphrases of a healthy, functioning democracy

I’ve been watching some GPW3 gameplay, but I also would probably not be able to play it lol. I just beat Jedi: Survivor yesterday. I waited a while to pick it up because of all the performance issues and it really did run like crap, but at least I got it on sale and it was still quite fun.

I’ll probably either go back to Sea of Stars, which I only played for a couple hours so far, or maybe I’ll play The Messenger, which I bought at the same time in a bundle.

Also, with the release of the Rivals 2 Kickstarter, I’ve been playing a bit of Rivals of Aether with friends. It’s one of the greatest platform fighters out there, but I feel like it’s still very underrated

You could check out Freedom Planet. It didn’t quite do it for me, but it has a decent fanbase

Notice that Q14 still allows for commercial tournaments but only if they acquire a license first. This is something Nintendo has been pushing since at least last year. That’s the debacle that killed Smash World Tour and the hill that Panda Global died on.

Not saying I agree with it. In fact, it’s so stupid, but there is still a path forward for now if Nintendo continues to give out those licenses. The real question is, what absurd rules will TOs need to adhere to in order to get a license?

I’ve been pretty psyched for this as someone who consumes a lot of 2D Mario content including Mario Maker and SMW ROM hacks. Glad to see basically everyone saying it feels solid

However, this quote from Digital Spy,

Instead, Wonder’s strongest moments are when it takes a breather, taking the time to set the scene while letting the platforming do the talking.

Is something I was kinda worried about as well. The wonder effects that were shown seem cool, but I really want the platforming to take the lead role. SMW ROM hacks show us that pure platforming can still be creative as hell. I wonder how SMBW will stack up to the likes of, say, GPW3

If you don’t Rock and Stone, you ain’t going home

There are definitely some older Tales games I might play again if they had an “enhanced” port. And localizing some of the JP only games would be cool too. I’d love some kind of Destiny 1 and 2 combo game. Would I buy Tales of the Abyss a third time, though? Probably

Obviously this is inappropriate and essentially robbing the tax payers of their money, but I would rather falsified stops than have them pulling over innocent people and issuing tickets to “meet quotas”. This country needs serious police reform one way or another

First I’ve heard of this but it looks like it definitely has some Chrono Trigger DNA and Yasunori effing Mitsuda involved in the music department! I will absolutely have to check this out

The game’s size on PC is 139.84 GB. It’s 100.19 GB for the Standard Edition and 117.07 GB for the Premium Edition on consoles, which also comes with a digital artbook and soundtrack, skin pack, and the Shattered Space Story Expansion (when it becomes available).

Preload for Steam users will start on August 30 and require 125 GB of free space

First one I saw was the YouTube algo showing me the Lanky Kong vid a few months back, but yeah, he has a unique, slightly dark sense of humor. The RPG one had me rolling though. An absolute gem in my book. Thanks for sharing this one. I hadn’t seen it

Love this guy’s videos. They are hilarious. You definitely need to watch the RPG series if you like this one. Other honorable mentions are the Curious George one and the Lanky Kong one

Adventure awaits! Huzzah!

Yeah it gives you and your opponent 6 random Pokémon each, but the moves and abilities are pulled from a small list of potential “competitive” move sets for that Pokémon. Then the levels of Pokémon are adjusted so that stronger Pokémon are a slightly lower level to balance things out.

It’s very fun to sit down and be in a battle within 10 seconds, but it can take a little bit of practice to get used to quickly reviewing your available moves for your whole team.

You can even play without even making an account and then you can create the account later if you want to save your progress

Super Auto Pets is simple and can be played for free in a browser. It’s a team building game that puts you against other players’ teams, so it’s competitive in that regard.

If you like Pokémon and consider that simple enough, Pokemon Showdown is a free online battle simulator for competitive battles against other players. You can even do “random battles” that just instantly throw you into a match without requiring you to make your own team

I’m really interested in playing this on the Deck. I know they said that it would run on Deck performance-wise, but I just don’t see how the controls won’t be awful and the text way too small.

Hoping for an official controller support patch and maybe some UI/text scaling options.

I have no problem playing on Desktop, but this is a game I would love to bring over to a friend’s place and play in handheld or on the TV, but right now, I have my doubts that it’s not cumbersome as hell. I can try the trackpad and R2 mouse style, but I dont have high hopes