Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan (Switch): COMPLETED!

Originally a Game Boy game, this TMNT game is now one of the games on the “Cowabunga” collection, and it… isn’t great. Pretty sure it wasn’t great at the time, either, what with the flickery graphics and barely-there animation and repetitive gameplay and the tiny viewport and, well, it goes on. It’s not that far from Kung Fu Master for most of the game, having to attack enemies as they approach from left and right, but there’s also some basic …

Lost in Play (Switch): COMPLETED!

A point and click adventure game set in the imaginations of two kids playing with a weird collection of creatures and characters, some Alice In Wonderland-esque trippiness, and some fantastic art and cartoon level animation? Sure, why not. Not unlike The Many Pieces of Mr Coo, Lost in Play is wordless, with intent and conversations in the game taking place via icons, gestures and various non-vocal grunts and outbursts. It does mean that a bit of nuance is lost, but …

Super Mario Land (Switch): COMPLETED!

Ah, who doesn’t remember the chart-topping MC Mario “Folks round here think I’m crazy, but I gotta rescue Daisy” song that was based on the music from this, slightly odd in hindsight, Game Boy Mario game? Kids, that’s who. Tch. And it is a bit odd. Super Mario Land starts out as a seemingly normal, low resolution and black and white approximation of the NES classic, but adds different enemies and the fire flower is a bouncy ball and there …

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (Switch): COMPLETED!

I have mentioned many times here how I do like a good (or even, a fair-to-middling) Metroidvania game. So when I discovered that the already great looking Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was such a game in that genre, I leapt on the demo and was so struck by it I did a very rare thing – I bought an actual physical copy. It’s really good. It does all the great things Metroidvanias do, by giving you additional powers …

Gal Guardians: Demon Purge (Switch): COMPLETED!

Why yes, this is another Metroidvania style game! And yes, it’s another one based on a different game, this time Gal*Gun by Inti Creates. Inti Creates, who have made some of my favourite platformers (including some other Metroidvanias) like Azure Striker Gunvolt and Blaster Master Zero. Of course I’m going to buy it. The ‘hing with Demon Purge, which differentiates it from all the other “explore a castle” games is that you control two characters at once, each with different …

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (Switch): COMPLETED!

I’m definitely in the mood for roleplaying games this year, so Xenoblade Chronicles – a game I already have, unplayed, for the 3DS – came to mind. Of course, I couldn’t play the 3DS version when a newer, better, more complete version exists, so I had to buy that. Naturally, it has never seen much of a price drop but after a few weeks of checking sites for cheap copies an Italian version came up on eBay for £23, less …

Portal 2 (Switch): COMPLETED!

Having completed Portal 2 in co-op, I thought I should really play the single player too. I’d remembered the overarching plot from my first playthrough, and the end boss fight (including how to beat it), but almost none of the puzzles and areas were familiar. Or rather, were but in a fuzzy sort of “this looks like something I have a very vague recollection of” in terms of graphics more than anything. So as with Portal, it was a nearly …

Portal 2 Co-op (Switch): COMPLETED!

Why yes, I did decide to play Portal 2 after Portal. And yes, I have played Portal 2 before. But! I haven’t played this Portal 2 before. I shall explain. What I’d never realised before, is that co-op mode in Portal 2 is not Portal 2 with two players. No, it’s a completely separate game. Different levels, different plot, different player character(s), just all set in the same world as Lonely Boi Portal 2. With two players at the same …

Portal (Switch): COMPLETED!

It has been a while. I’ve often thought about playing through Portal again, especially since I have it on Steam and so could play it on my Steam Deck. So, naturally, I bought it for the Switch. To be fair, it was a bundle of Portal and Portal 2, and it was on sale for under £3. And you can’t own the same game on too many platforms. Although it looks a little dated now, perhaps not as much as …

Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Switch): COMPLETED!

Donkey Kong ’94 on the Game Boy is one of my favourite platformers. After the first four levels, which are the same as the original Donkey Kong arcade game, it becomes this massive puzzle platformer with a very agile Mario up against Donkey Kong. Mario vs. Donkey Kong, the Game Boy Advance sequel, was also great, but it introduced levels with mini Mario toys in it that you have to help to the exit in a very Troddlers/Krusty’s Super Fun …

Golden Sun: The Lost Age (Switch): COMPLETED!

With the original Golden Sun ending on a cliff-hanger, and The Lost Age carrying on directly from it (or rather, from slightly before the end of the first game), I didn’t really have a choice but to start it immediately afterwards. Well, not quite immediately, as you can transfer your saved game from the first game to the follow-up but this required half an hour of password input and correction. Not that you see the benefit of the password for …

Golden Sun (Switch): COMPLETED!

Many years ago, so long ago that my Gaming Diary didn’t even exist, I played Golden Sun on my Game Boy Advance. It was great. At least, I remember it being great, but I remember very little about the actual events in the game. I recall the catastrophe at the start, and the village you’re in, and that your friend goes missing and it turns out later on he’s working with (under duress) the bad guys. I remember there was …

Detective Pikachu Returns (Switch): COMPLETED!

It’s been a long time coming, what with the original game coming in at the end of the Nintendo 3DS’ viable life, and it now being the twilight hours of the Nintendo Switch, but finally it was released and, having given it to my daughter to play first, the time eventually came for me to finish the story that cliffhangered on the previous game. Now, I may be misremembering the first game, but I’m pretty sure this one is somewhat …

Return to Monkey Island (Switch): COMPLETED!

It’s another one of those “why did it take me so long to get round to it” games. Well, to answer that, just take a look around the rest of my site. But here I am, having eventually played and completed it. There was much kerfuffle about the change in graphic style between this and the original (and the remasters of those, and the Telltale Games ones) as if the pixels of the first two games were sacred and should …

FAR: Lone Sails (Switch): COMPLETED!

In a post-apocalypse world, the seas have dried up and you, the only living creature in the entire game, have a land-boat thing with big wheels which you have to take from the left side of the world to the right side of the world. You have an engine you need to keep fuelled, you get a sail you can raise when there’s wind, things break and catch fire and you have to fix them, and often there are places …