StreetPass Fishing (3DS): COMPLETED!

I’ve been on and off with StreetPass Fishing ever since it came out, usually forgetting to play until I realise I have 300 coins to spend, then splurge them all on anglers at once, then forget again until I’ve another 300. Today, though, with my last batch of cats (those who chose dogs are idiots), I caught the final legendary fish, and won the game! Then it told me there were actually another three legendary fish they’d neglected to tell …

3D Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (3DS): COMPLETED!

Twenty-odd years ago, many a Saturday morning would be spent playing Sonic. Or Sonic 2. Or Sonic 3. And today, a Saturday, I played and completed 3D Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the Nintendo 3DS. It was awesome. Like Gunstar Heroes and the first 3D Sonic the Hedgehog, the 3D here is mostly subtle. The original parallax layers are now given actual depth, and although this makes it feel more like a pop-up diorama than properly 3D it still makes …

Picross e6 (3DS): COMPLETED!

Picross e6 is HUGE. Especially compared to previous Picross eX games. Picross e2 took me 18 1/2 hours to finish, and was the previous largest game, but e6 took me just shy of 30 hours. Massive, see. Unfortunately, it does this by cheating a bit. You see, it seems that all the standard Picross puzzles are duplicated as Mega Picross puzzles. You know, those ones where numbers span two rows or columns. Sure, it means the solutions aren’t the same, …

3D Gunstar Heroes (3DS): COMPLETED!

The second game of the day, with Heroes in the title! I never completed Gunstar Heroes back in the day. In fact, I don’t think I ever played it much (I didn’t buy it until many years after release anyway). Or even enjoyed it. Yeah, I’m a heretic. But there’s something about these 3D ports on the 3DS that make you want to play them anyway, isn’t there? Otherwise why did I buy Altered Beast again? Hmm. My main issue …

3D Streets of Rage 2 (3DS): COMPLETED!

Streets of Rage 2 was always so much better than Streets of Rage 1 in so many ways. Better graphics, more moves, none of those stupid Blaze clones who are impossible to beat, and so on. It was also easier, but sadly the music isn’t quite as good. Ah well, you can’t have everything. I played through it today on the 3DS (in lovely 3D), as Blaze (because Blaze is best and not because you can see her knickers oh …

StreetPass Zombies (3DS): COMPLETED!

There’s not a great deal to say about this, aside from that a couple of the final levels were pretty tricky, and even though the end boss appeared both indestructible and virtually impossible to dodge I still managed to off him on my first attempt. The Wii remote is the best weapon by far, incidentally, except on the final boss where I found the pillow invaluable with it’s rapid fire. Fun, and I’ll probably play it a bit longer, but …

Shantae (3DS): COMPLETED!

It’s been a long time. The “time played” in the 3DS stats shows I’ve spent just under twelve hours on this, but that’s spread over several months, since I started back in February. It isn’t because it’s a bad game, far from it, it’s just that every so often I’d realise I’d travelled all the way to the wrong end of the map (it loops round, but only when you’ve almost finished the game!), and couldn’t face travelling all the …

Things I’ve been playing recently

Roundup! Mega Man 7 (Wii U) It’s been a few months since I started Mega Man 7. I think, after ploughing through Mega Mans 1-6 I may have had a bit of Mega Man burnout, and I was a bit disappointed with 7 anyway as it didn’t feel right. Anyway, I’m back on it now and have taken down the first lot of four Robot Masters. I’m enjoying it, and it does feel more like the NES games than it …

Azure Striker Gunvolt (3DS): COMPLETED!

Aside from a couple of bosses, and the “water chasing you up the tower” level (which I realised I was doing wrong – you can wall jump and fall slowly when you’re sparking), I managed to get to the penultimate level of the game without too much trouble. Then I hit a wall. A SuckySuck Bit(TM) wall. That’s right folks: a boss rush. I suppose I was expecting it. After all, Gunvolt isa follow-up of sorts to Mega Man, and Boss …

Box Boy! (3DS): COMPLETED!

A black and white puzzle platform game for under a fiver on the eShop by the people that made Pokemans? That can’t be good, surely? Until I saw a video of it, and there was something about the simple style that piqued my interest. The way you solved the puzzles, by making boxes that link together, seemed unique. On paper, it sounds like Sokoban (Irritating and Unnecessary Gaming Cliché #2), but it’s really totally different. Your little box, Box Boy, …

Mighty Gunvolt (3DS): COMPLETED!

Since I’ve recently become a fan of Mega Man games, I have been looking forward to the release of the 3DS game Azure Striker Gunvolt. It’s supposedly a spiritual successor to Mega Man. What’s even more interesting is that an 8-bit style version of it, Mighty Gunvolt, came free. I was looking forward to that even more. And here it is, and 40 minutes later, there it was. Completed. OK, so it’s short and pretty easy. But so much fun! …

Mighty Switch Force 2 (3DS): COMPLETED!

It’s been a long time since I played the 3DS original, but I did always intend to buy the sequel. At £1.25 instead of the usual £5 in this week’s sale, there was no excuse. The only difficulty was choosing whether to get the 3DS version or the Wii U one. I went 3DS for the 3D effect, which really does make a useful difference. I’m glad I did, as well. It’s even better than the first game. The water …

3D Shinobi III (3DS): COMPLETED!

What a great game. It’s hard, but not as hard as Revenge of Shinobi, it has some satisfying platforming sections, and the music is fantastic. The 3D adds very little, but that’s not really important. I only had a few minor complaints. One was that doing the double-jump somersault should have been easier to pull off, especially since some of the later parts of the game rely on it so much. Second was the level where you go through doors …

Things I’ve been playing recently

Roundup time! Yakuza 4 (PS3) It’s been a while since I played Yakuza 3. I did really enjoy it, but never got round to picking up Yakuza 4, probably because it was a PS3 game and I don’t really like playing PS3 games, however good they are. However, for reasons I won’t explain, I got a PS+ subscription and with it came Yakuza 4. I’m a few hours in, and have spent most of the game so far watching cut …

3D Altered Beast (3DS): COMPLETED!

WISE FWOM YOUR GWAVE! Or, even better, stay dead and buried. Why on earth did Sega think that porting the Megadrive version (not even the arcade version!) of this infamously terrible game to the 3DS? Or even to any other console? Nobody, absolutely nobody at all, wanted it, liked it originally, or is ever going to buy it. Er, except that I did, of course. Um. In my defence, I did only get it because it was half price. And …