weebdeluxe

On Thursday, the 18th of April, I decided to challenge myself: After having seen a youtube video about somebody only playing the Nintendo 3DS for 30 days, I decided that I want to do the very same thing.

The reasoning was fairly simple: I haven’t really played my 3DS in a long time and it would be fun to revisit the system that I have many fond memories off. 30 days doesn’t seem like that long a timeframe either, so I was sure I’d have no problems making it through that challenge.

It’s way harder then expected. So much is already clear after about half of the challenge is done. But I already enjoyed my time so far and I’m happy to share my insights into what I have learned this far.

Lesson 1: Less is more

This one is basic and unsurprising: Having less choices improves your choice making. I don’t have all that much time to play videogames. Very often, I lose a considerable amount of time just trying to figure out what to play. Focusing on a single console and its library reduces the number of choices I could make. Which leads to me making far better choices.

Lesson 2: The DS/3DS libraries are huge and very diverse

It’s kind of an understatement, but the libraries for the dual screen handhelds are huge. I collected a lot of JRPGs, but I also have a decent amount of Jump and Run games, Visual Novels and many more. I like story heavy games, so collecting those has always made sense to me. However, I made sure to get a lot of Nintendo’s own games as well.

Lesson 3: Switching it up is key

With a challenge like this, I feel like it’s important to switch games as soon as you feel like you need a break. Yes, the Mario & Luigi games are great. Yes, Link Between Worlds might be the first Zelda in a long time to really pique my interest. Yes, Phoenix Wright has amazingly fun writing. But playing those games for days without taking a break is a bad idea, since it will most definitely burn me out.

Lesson 4: Leave your comfort zone

I don’t like Zelda but gave Link Between Worlds a try. That was a good idea. I heard many good things about Crimson Shroud but felt daunted by its mechanics. Now I want to play it more. Resident Evil Mercenaries always seemed odd and… it is odd, but I don’t regret giving it a try.

Lesson 5: True portability

You think the Switch or even the Steamdeck is portable? Compared to the 3DS, those consoles are unwieldy and complicated. The 3DS is small, easy to carry and always ready for a quick burst of gaming. This is not meant as a knock against the other devices, but true portable only devices have the luxury of an even smaller form factor and the 3DS with its clamshell design has been easier for me to always carry with me than other devices.

Lesson 6: Play more, play more focused

In a week I had played more on my 3DS than in 2022 and 2023 combined. I always felt kind of bad for leaving the device behind because I have a huge backlog on that thing. Now I feel like it’s almost manageable to complete all the games on there if only I spend more time with it regularly.

Lesson 7: Retro gold is precious

This is an extension to lesson 3: Revisiting Virtual Console games or even some 3D-remakes of older titles are a great way to break things up and to explore libraries of systems I never owned. This is especially true for the Gameboy, GBA and the Sega Game Gear.

As always, thanks for reading. If you want to follow me on mastodon, you can do so over at @[email protected]

Wii remember: Devil's crush

I love pinball machines. Which is sad considering that they disappeared in this country around the time when I became a teenager. Still, there were digital pinball games and they made sure I found some kind of outlet for that love during my youth.

Since I had a Sega Mega Drive, and yes, I refuse to call that machine by any other name, I played Sonic Spinball, a rather underrated spin-off of the Sonic franchise. It had a neat spin on the pinball formula, adding some light platforming and a clear level progression. It's one of the few games on the Mega Drive I managed to beat back in the day, even though I found it to be difficult.

Speaking of underrated and maybe even overlooked games, the TurboGrafx16 (or PC Engine) had plenty of those. Never really having been released in a greater capacity in Europe, the console completely flew under my radar until I got a Wii. It was a great surprise to me when Nintendo announced that the Virtual Console was going to include games from that device, even in Europe.

Enter one of the many droughts that the Wii experienced and me being intrigued by this weird little pinball game called Devil’s Crush. I read a lot about it, saw some videos, and thought to myself it would be a great idea to get it. And it sure was!

Devil’s Crush takes the basics of pinball and heightens them in the right ways. You have one pinball table with three levels and several extra stages. So far, so normal for digital pinball games. But this game is special is in the optics and audio departments: Devil’s Crush exudes a forbidden, ghoulish energy that was rare in the 16-Bit-days. Especially in the context of the way more prevalent Nintendo games, which were kid and family friendly, the TurboGrafx16 seemed to me like the little sister of the Sega Mega Drive. While Sega very obviously tried to cater to teens by being edgy, Hudson’s system was inviting much of the same energy. This might explain why this game got a port to the Sega Mega Drive too.

Every part of this pinball table takes the opportunity to add in as many demonic elements as possible. You have hooded figures, dragons, coffins that explode and give you many more creatures. The centerpiece is what you assume is a nice and attractive lady, but she turns into a lizard if you hit her often enough with your pinball. There’s nothing truly benign in this game and add to this an absolutely mesmerizing main track that keeps looping and creates a very dense atmosphere and you have the masterrecipe for a spooky 16-bit game. I feel reminded of the Splatterhouse games at times, which again is a Hudson franchise. Really, the soundtrack is the part of the game that stayed with me for the longest. Written by Toshiaki Sakoda, of MUSHA-fame, it builds so much of the atmosphere. According to an interview over at hardcore gaming, he has ghostwritten many soundtracks in the 80’s and 90’s, so you might have heard some of his stuff without knowing so.

When this game came out in July of 2007, it had been months since a new game had come out, that I was interested. As I mentioned before, Mario Strikers Charged was a lot of fun, but it didn’t get all that much playtime from me and I was already done with Twilight Princess and Red Steel. I was still happy with the Wii and the promises surrounding it, but this first real drought was already shifting my perspective. It was a good thing I had other gaming options. If I were limited to only Nintendos newest console, it would have been pretty bad. Then again, there Is Gamecube backwards compatibility, which meant I still kept playing the Wii, even though there were not that many games.

Since I enjoyed taking my Wii to my friend’s places, I also wanted them to get into this pinball game. Normally, a pinball game is a natural fit for some decent competition, with that focus on high scores and all. Unfortunately, it never became popular with my friends, which again limited the appeal of that game. But I still love it and it’s amazing music. And yes, I still need to check out the other games in the franchise. The only game I played that could be compared to this is Demon’s tilt, which I had some fun with when it was on Gamepass. Just looking at that game is like a horrifying terrific fever dream.

There is no legal way anymore to get a modern, digital version of Devil’s Crush anymore, which is a huge disappointment. With the discontinuation of the Virtual Console, most if not all TurboGrafx16 games are pretty much unavailable now. This is pretty sad, and I feel we are collectively missing out on many very interesting games.

But that’s enough of me complaining. It would only take another month for my favourite game of 2007 to arrive. So look forward to my next blogpost, which will hopefully take less time to come out than this one.

As always, thanks for reading. If you want to follow me on mastodon, you can do so over at @[email protected]

The next part of this little series takes me back to May 2007. Yes, there is a pretty sizable gap here, but remember: Both Zelda and Red Steel kept me busy for some time.

The biggest release I was surprisingly looking forward to for the first half of 2007 was Mario Strikers Charged. I write “surprisingly” because I have no huge history with football games. And yes, it’s “football”, get over it.

The first football game I ever spent time with was Nintendo World Cup on the NES. Our family got it because some of us (not me!) enjoyed football, so a football game was a must get. And for what it’s worth, I enjoyed playing it. It was weird, allowed for odd things like fouling other players so many times, that they just stayed lying on the grass and you could do some very mangaesque trickshots. Only a couple of years ago, I found out that this was the localized version of a Kunio-kun game. I recently bought it for the Switch since it was part of the Kunio Collection and it sure still is fun. Maybe I’ll write a blogpost about that one too. I put it on my list of sidequests to this blog series.

The second important football game for me was the official FIFA World Cup game for 2002. That world cup was very important for me, as it partially took place in Japan and as a young weeb, I was enjoying the attention the country was getting in mainstream media thanks to it. Heck, I even watched most of the games and I played the videogame alongside it. I prided myself on beating Brazil as Japan in the finals many, many times. If there’s something I enjoy, it’s a game where I can create my own alternative history.

The original Mario Strikers is not on this list, and I never checked it out. I must admit that the main draw for Strikers Charged was its online mode. Up until then, there were no online games for the Nintendo Wii and the fact that Europe got this game early made it feel even more special. It’s funny to me now that this was one of the reasons I was so much looking forward to the game, since I am not a huge online gamer. And the online mode would not be the reason, why I enjoyed this game.

Mario Strikers Charged is a football game in the same way as the original Deadpool movie was a romance flick. On the surface, some elements (a ball, two goals, two goalkeepers and the preference of hitting said ball with feet) have a striking similarity with the actual real-life sport. But the interpretation is so supercharged with excessive videogame logic, it’s barely recognizable at points. There are the special items of cours, which could stem from Mario Kart or indeed any other Mario sports title. They spice things up considerably and turn Mario Strikers Charged into a fun party game. But to dismiss this yet another party pleaser would be a disservice to the actual mechanic build in. There is the titular mechanic, which lets you charge up the ball with each consecutive pass and let’s you do super powerful shots. Then there are the special ability shots of the characters, which need a special charge up phase, that can be interrupted by anyone who is close enough to tackle you. When you manage to pull it off however, you get a cool animation and the opponent must use the sole Wii Motion gimmick present: Balls come flying at the screen and you must move your cursor in time to catch them, so they don’t score. I really like that this is a test of luck and skill at the same time and it’s well integrated.

One of the best things about this game is its flair: It has rock music, awesome lineart, great animations and the characters ooze with personality. The game felt surprisingly edgy and agressive without ever overdoing it. The latest entry in the series on the Switch toned it done but kept a lot of the mechanics present in this Wii title. Maybe I’ll do a blogpost on that game too?

As mentioned, the game had online features. They have been turned off some while ago but fans keep this game still going. I was surprised to find out that it still has a small, dedicated community that plays this as an e-sport. I played a couple of evening online and it sure was fun, but it wasn’t something that kept me engaged. For the most part, I played local multiplayer with friends or the single player mode. Local multiplayer worked great of course since it made those characters with their different stats shine. The singleplayer was surprisingly difficult and I remember never unlocking the final character. You play in cups with qualifiers and later with K.O.-rounds. As mentioned, it gives you a decent challenge and it’s a lot of fun to crush the enemy, if you’re good enough.

While not being the greatest start into 2007, I really enjoyed this, and I remember playing it often for a whole month. However, 2007 was a pretty barebones year for me… in the next part of this series, we are going to make a small pitstop in July before heading over to August and my favourite game of 2007.

As always, thanks for reading. If you want to follow me on mastodon, you can do so over at @[email protected]

Wii remember

I haven't been blogging in ages. And to be honest, it feels kind of weird to restart now, since the internet is in a weird place. To say the least.

Not too long ago, I had a Twitter-Account with a good number of followers. But as that site has become an eternal hellscape, I decided to move away from it. I'm very happy on Mastodon now, where I came up with this very blog project.

Since doing large threads can be a huge hassle on that site, I decided to give this space a go. Bear with me as I get a hang of it.

In this blog, I am going to focus on my personal experience with the Nintendo Wii – from launch to death. I will limit myself to the games I got during their release window (around two months of their release). Between 2012 and 2016 I bought many more Wii games used and built a big selection and I will for sure dive into some obscure games in other blogposts. But for now, I’m mostly trying to retell my experience of the system as it was back in those times.

Please note that I also owned a 360, Nintendo DS and gaming PC at the time. Even if I considered my Wii my most important machine back then, the sad truth was that I didn’t use it all the time. There were dry spells, and they were significant. But that did not take away from my overall enjoyment of the system. I am also including WiiWare and Virtual Console games, as I feel these were essential for the experience back then.

Before I go into the start of the Wii, I want to first talk about how hype was building up back then. The Nintendo Gamecube was my first console that I bought with my own money. That was a huge thing as a teen, since that meant it was wholly my console that I had to share with absolutely nobody. However, the selection of games, all above the JRPGs, was kind of lacklustre.

So, I was very much looking forward to what Nintendo would do with that new console they called “Revolution”. When the new name became public in April 2006, my enthusiasm did not drop. Watching the E3 2006 show of Nintendo, which was my first E3 I saw live, reinforced my hype: While I wasn’t a Zelda fan and still aren’t to this day, I was looking forward to playing this one. And Red Steel looked so awesome!

The announcement of the Virtual Console was also a big deal for me. I’m a huge sucker for backwards compatibility. And a system that is compatible with the Gamecube and offers downloads of retro games was absolutely blowing my mind back then. There was this promise of a machine that would bring together all the consoles I enjoyed in the past. And even some I missed out on, like the Turbografx-16, that never saw a full-scale release in Europe.

So, launch day rolled around and I tried to muster up as much money as possible for it. I was able to get the console with Wii sports, a second controller with Wii Play and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The last game here was a tough choice: I’m no Zelda Fan, but Red Steel did not seem meaty enough for me, so I initially skipped it, to get it used about a month later. Anyway, let’s focus on December 2006 for now.

Wii Sports and Wii Play were fun games, especially at get togethers. Before the launch of the Wii, I used to travel with my Gamecube to friends’ places to play games together. This continued with the Wii and these two games were fun for a while. I was really sold on the gimmick from the get-go, so it did not take a lot of convincing for me to get on board. But I very quickly had enough of it and moved on.

The game I played the most when I was alone at home was of course The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Now, as I have mentioned before, I am not a big fan of Zelda. They are fine by me, but they never manage to hype me, and I only ever played a couple of them. In fact, Twilight Princess was the first game in the franchise I really sat down to play. And I sure completed it in December 2016. It was fun, very atmospheric, and quite engaging. It was also an experience I have a lot of trouble remembering now. Unlike other Wii games, I never revisited Twilight Princess and the most lasting impression I got from it was… moods. Which is fine, really, but I sometimes feel like I’m missing something, when it comes to this franchise. Maybe it has something to do with me getting into it so late, but the same holds true for Metroid and I love that franchise. However, the novel thing the Wii brought to the table and that was later dubbed “waggle controls” is something I really enjoyed. I felt that it gave me a bit more immersion. That sounds silly looking back, but I still think that motion controls can greatly improve your experience. If the implementation is done well, of course.

The other game I got early, but used, was Red Steel. This game was very hyped, and we got an early look of it during the summer, when gaming magazines dedicated a lot of pages to the game and pretty much filled them with bullshots. The screenshots still look leagues better than the finished game. It wasn’t ugly by the standards back then but failed to live up to the hype. Add to the fact that it was a generic game in terms of mechanics, and you see why so many have pretty much forgotten about it. I for one dug the atmosphere, as I am a sucker for Japanese aesthetics. I also enjoyed the First-Person Shooter controls, that were generally panned. What I didn’t enjoy that much were the swordplay mechanics, which were mediocre at best back then. I replayed this game to completion three times, one last time about five years ago. And while its many flaws have become way more apparent, I still hold a special place for it in my heart.

While these two games alone would be enough to keep me busy, I also got Donkey Kong Country and Golden Axe on the Virtual Console. I used to play Donkey Kong Country as a young teen at a friend’s place. I did not own a Super Nintendo back then, as I jumped from NES to Mega Drive, but I was always interested in this game. Finally getting it digitally for what I considered a low price was a huge deal for me. I played it a lot, but never finished it. Which is fine, but I still plan on returning to it at some point.

Golden Axe has a little personal story too. The only arcade around during my teenage years was at a cinema and they had a machine with Golden Axe on it. I got hypnotized by the attract mode of that game: the fantasy setting was a huge draw for me, and I usually enjoy Beat’em ups. After buying it, I did my best to finish it. And while that was enjoyable enough, with the crunchy music and sound effects and all that Beat’em Up goodness, I also enjoyed playing it with friends. It’s not the best of its kind out there, not even on the Mega Drive, but we played so many sessions of that game over the years.

And this already concludes 2006 and December 2006. For my next post, I will be skipping to May 2007, so stay tuned for that.