twiztor

the 80s was a tough one. i voted Little Mermaid, since it kicked off a Disney renaissance. but this is my reminder that i haven't seen Great Mouse Detective or Black Cauldron in decades and i should rectify that.

i hate the mini mushroom. like seemingly everyone else, i am not really a fan of the propeller cap, but the mini mushroom has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. i hate that you have to use it to unlock some of the worlds. it's just so stupid. no love.

despite getting rid of the vast majority of my VHS tapes years ago, i held on to a copy of that "Change the System" video. i watched that thing tons of time as a kid, so lots of nostalgic memories.

have you played Kirby's Epic Yarn? Yoshi's Woolly World always seemed more like a sequel to that game than any prior Yoshi game. i haven't played YWW, so i'm mainly thinking that based on the aesthetic. i guess i'm wondering if that's an accurate assumption or not.

just PM me for my address so you can get it sent out ASAP.

NES: i have LoZ as my favorite game ever, so it picks up the win here. SMB3 though. SNES: LttP barely edges out SMW. this is damn close though. N64: i love OoT, but SM64 is iconic and gives Mario his first big win here. GameCube: i wasn't a fan of Sunshine. i liked Luigi's Mansion enough, but still Twilight Princess seals it for the Zelda side Wii: easy win for Mario Galaxy here. i thought SS was decent, but it's no contest. Wii U: BotW > SM3DW & Super Luigi U Switch: Odyssey & Luigi's Mansion 3 > any side Zelda games, so Team Mario all the way here. BotW2 will likely steal this round when it releases. GB: SML2 was a staple of my childhood, but i also loved LA. Mario. doubly so if you include DK '94 GBC: the Oracle games are pretty sweet, so they seal it for Zelda. VB: Mario by default. GBA: Mario vs Donkey Kong is far and away the king. DS: i haven't played a Zelda game on the DS because i hate the Windwaker art style. Therefore, Mario. 3DS: i was extremely underwhelmed by LBW, so again i gotta side with Mario here. i liked the coins gimmick in NSB2. and Luigi's Mansion 2 was an improvement over the original. Grand Total: Mario 8 Zelda 5 i haven't played any of the CDi games, but otherwise i agree with all of these. also, the Zelda board game is better than the Mario board game.

i finished Hollow Knight (Nintendo Switch) this is a top notch Metroidvania style game. i really love this style of game, and this ranks up there with the best of them. engaging story, great pseudo-retro graphics, and a haunting soundtrack all add to the experience. all that said, this game is BRUTALLY difficult, particularly the boss fights. and there's a LOT of boss fights. i gave up on this game a couple different times due to the challenge, but kept getting pulled back in. seriously, i think this is the toughest game i've ever seen the end on. all in all, it took 50 hours, i earned 77% completion and the bad ending. good enough for me.

have they already paid? if not, the easiest way is to send them an invoice that combines shipping costs for them. if so, it's a little more gray area. if you're shipping them together, i would refund some of the shipping cost. or you could ignore it until they complain.

in! desperately hoping this is my year!!i have the perfect spot picked out for it!!!

good read. thanks for sharing @Lynda Monica!

totally in! will get a list together and sent in very soon. but if @Ferris Buelleror @Foochie776is my Secret Santa, just know that the #1 thing on my list is the "Cute Girl or Feminine Boy" photo!

i think that's a damn good question. personally, i doubt i would have been exposed to it, since my firsthand childhood was relatively limited. but had i come across it later, i feel like i could've easily perceived it as a 7 (same rating i gave it as SMB2). "good" game that never quite hits that "great" rating. that seems reasonable. it's still a quality 1st party Nintendo game, so you know it's not trash. but in other circumstances i could definitely defend a 1 point bump as a sort of "Mario tax" edit to give clarification: Doki Doki Panic 6-7, round up to 7. SMB 7-8, round down to 7.

i waffled on this for a while, but went with a 7. i like this game, and always have, but the more time goes on, the less i find myself choosing it. I will pick Mario 1, 3, or World all day if i'm just looking to pop in some classic Mario action. Maybe it's the decades of arguing whether it "counts" as a true Mario game (it does!) or maybe it's more that its play mechanics have never really been followed up on, leaving it as an outlier. i don't know. i DO know that this game began my love for Luigi ("Crazy Legs Luigi" as we called him BITD).

^all of this. i thought Super Metroid was pretty awesome, but when i finished it a couple years back, i just wanted to replay the original Metroid. Also, i much prefer Symphony of the Night to Super Metroid. No hate, great game, but not quite a 10 from me.

easiest answer ever: the Legend of Zelda. if i had grown up with Metroid (i didn't play it until many years later), it would give Zelda a run for its money. but i didn't, so Zelda takes the crown. to choose from non-cliche answers (going off @PII's list), i would go with either Alfred Chicken or Milon's Secret Castle.

yeah, your take and experience while playing seems to mirror mine very closely. i'd say that must be a pretty common opinion on the game, as people seem to appreciate the game without anybody heaping praise upon it. it's a solid, good game, with a very un-Nintendo-like atmosphere that makes it stand out from your normal Mario games. i don't know how much more reading you did, but i also played through #2 and 3 this year. Dark Moon was my favorite of the trilogy.

we always said "beat the game", meaning saw the credits, when i was a kid, so that's the terminology i still use. i lean towards "completed" meaning "completely finished" it, but i don't feel strongly enough to complain if someone reverses the terms. honestly, i'd probably use "100%ed" if i want to show off that i've completely annihilated the game (not something i tend to do).

thanks @Jeevan! this is the big 4-0 for me, so i'm a little terrified!

this sounds like a lot of fun. maybe i'll check it out for my birthday next year (my bday is also in October, coincidentally enough)

Double Dragon (I) for the NES. one of my all time personal faves on the system.

i also had it preordered and bought it on release day. was obsessed with it back then. i'm talking about dreaming of the game. sitting in class jotting down ideas for how to solve puzzles or weird stuff to try. if i had a free second, i was immersing myself in this game. loved every second. that is, until i completed it. now, i'm terrified to ever play this again, as there's basically 0% chance that it will live up to my nostalgic warm fuzzies. so it will forever remain a perfect game, just one i won't allow myself to ever pop in again. 10/10. p.s. not really a fan of Majora's Mask.

hmm, i've beaten 12 games on the first version of the list. gave up on Hollow Knighg most of the way through, so that ranks way up there for me (love the game, but those boss fights...) this may be my incentive to complete SMB2(J), which i've always considered my white whale. can i finish it in 2022 or does it make the 2023 backlog thread? time will tell........

i had a friend who worked at Toys R Us and was a "Gym Leader" for at least one of those kind of events. Definitely how i scored a non-Game Genie Mew back in the day, even if it is long gone by now. It still counts as "legitimately" getting a Mew if you lied to collect one, right?

i will occasionally check out Pat & Ian podcast snippets that get posted to YouTube (i see i'm not alone by the others that have posted links). It's not something that i will go out of my way for, or dedicate a lot of time to, but it's usually not bad. I have really appreciated their updates on the Intellivision Amico "system". i enjoy them losing their minds over what was an obvious scam from early on, but people just kept falling for. Ian just burned himself out on gaming retail. Once you start being annoyed by the little things, it is damn near impossible to remove those negative connotations without a full on reset. IMO that's where a lot of his pessimistic takes come from. How many times can you deal with customers that only want MINTY FRESH labels before you just roll your eyes? How many times can you hear "but it's only $XX on eBay" / "i can get $XX for it on eBay" before you begin to loathe even having those conversations? For Ian, it seems like he had to totally distance himself from a lot of that so that he could continue to enjoy gaming. i totally get that. i put in more than my share of retail time, and it (helped) turn me into a cynical dude too.