Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind (Switch): COMPLETED!

This is actually half of a double pack along with The Missing Heir, as they were released together but are actually separate downloads. It’s obviously very similar to the other Detective Club game, and has some of the same characters. This one is set a few years before the other, however, at the start of your private detective career, and centres around investigating a murder in a high school (where you meet the girl who will become your partner in …

Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir (Switch): COMPLETED!

I’d seen a number of reviews comparing this series of games to the Phoenix Wright games and let me tell you this – they’re not really much alike at all. Phoenix Wright has humour and puzzles and magic and stupidity and nonsense, whereas Famicom Detective Club is (despite appearances) rooted in reality with no magic or ghosts or stuff like that. And there’s no trial – just investigations. Which play out mostly like a visual novel. The Missing Heir is …

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed (Switch): COMPLETED!

I’m a little sad now that the whole Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy has come to an end. This feature-length DLC for XC3 might be the last time we see the worlds created for the series, as although it did manage to forge some links with Xenoblade Chronicles X, I understand that’s not really related and the “links” are really little more than Easter eggs. Sad. But the good things! Future Redeemed is set about 500 years before Xenoblade Chronicles 3, in …

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch)

I went back after completing the main story, as there was still A Lot To Do. Not least completing the story unlocks two more Heroes – the Queens of Agnus and Keves themselves – but also because I had loads of other side missions and stuff I wanted to look into. There’s quite a lot more exposition on how the world of Aionios came to be, as well as more backstory on both the main characters and all of the …

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch): COMPLETED!

I’ve been playing a lot of Huge RPGs in the last year or so, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 might be the longest one yet. I’ve completed it, but of course There’s Still More To Do, so it’s not over yet. Just 85 or so hours in. It’s hard to talk about everything in the game without spoilers. Normally, a spoiler in an RPG like this would just spoil the ending of this game, but in the case of Xenoblade 3 …

Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (Switch): COMPLETED!

Sadly not the full Metroidvania experience I was expecting (the reason it ended up on my wishlist in the first place, following a review), Momodora still feels like one. Creepy town with a creepy castle, a curse, a map to explore, and pixel graphics? It certainly has the look of one. What’s missing is all the extra powers that open up new areas. Sure, there are some, but very few. That means it is more a standard explorey platformer, hence …

River City Girls 2 (Switch): COMPLETED!

My daughter and I were big fans of the original River City Girls so the sequel was sat on my wishlist for ages waiting for a bit sale. That came around, and we played it through together. It’s more of the same, really. A side-scrolling, semi-open-world beat-em-up with RPG elements set in the world of Kunio-kun/River City Ransom and made by Wayforward, just like the first game. It has a great cartoon style, loads of in-jokes (with both River City …

Miss Rosen’s Wowtastic! Marching Band (Switch): COMPLETED!

Note: A free code was given to me by the devs for review purposes for an upcoming episode of the ugvm Podcast. This isn’t a full review, just a record in my gaming diary. The full review will be over there anon. A while back, I played the totally ridiculous Switch game About An Elf. It had a very unique art style and gameplay which teeters on the very definition of what gameplay is, and was baffling before you even …

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna – The Golden Country (Switch): COMPLETED!

If the $hlmun of hours on the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 main game and DLC wasn’t enough, then thank $deity for this prequel spin-off! Yes, more Xenoblade! Amazing. To be cynical for a moment, it’s clear that this was likely originally supposed to be integrated in the main game. There’s a number of flashbacks to events 500 years ago, and it’s those events that are retold in full here. You could complain about it being money-grabbing to ask you to buy …

Rain On Your Parade (Switch): COMPLETED!

Rain On Your Parade is one of those silly arcade games that things like Donut County and Pool Panic. In this, you’re a sentient cloud who – initially – is mainly tasked with raining on things. After all, what else can a cloud do? You have to soak so many people or rust so many vehicles, that sort of thing. Quickly things take a bit of a turn when you’re encouraged to cause chaos, set fire to stuff (you can …

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Switch)

So I did go back to it! I was prompted to by a Christmas Present though – I received a (physical) copy of Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna -The Golden Country. This is a stand-alone prequel to XC2, but also contains a code for all the additional DLC for XC2, of which there’s rather a lot. When Xenoblade 2 was originally released, there was a “season pass” type thing going on with DLC drops every so often. Sometimes it’d be in-game …

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Switch): COMPLETED!

This game is big, busy, and full of charm, even if it doesn’t quite hit the same epic scale as the first Xenoblade Chronicles. If you’ve played the first game, you’ll see some familiar creatures (like the adorable fluffball Nopon) and field enemies, but there’s no direct link between the two stories – at least, not initially. That said, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is prettier than the first game, with vibrant visuals and more detailed environments. It’s also much busier, with …

Dadish 3D (Switch): COMPLETED!

Not part of the Dadish Collection but I felt, having completed all those, I just had to give it a go. It’s exactly what you think it is – it’s the same game again, but in 3D. Same characters, same plot, even similar level themes, but being 3D it feels different. I have to say, that the platforming doesn’t work as well here. As is often the case with 3D platformers, judging distance is hard and in Dadish 3D usually …