Lynda Monica

I took the extra day off that Canada got to do some work at home, and moved an enormous desk out of my room that's been wasting space. The possibilities of how I can set up my room have soared as a result, and I couldn't be happier to be rid of the thing. So my question to all of you is "What's the most recent large item you've moved in or out of your house?" Bonus points to those who can turn this into a show off thread and show off a cool large gaming item.

They are, but English actors are often told to ham up their accents. The way you hear English people speak in movies and games is often so exaggerated that it comes off as phony even if they are actually English. It always takes me out of it when they're hamming it up too much, and the Xenoblade series is really guilty of it.

I might catch some trouble for saying this, but I'd say the Xenoblade games have pretty horrible voice acting. The phony accents and endlessly repeating lines become incredibly irritating after a while. The original Resident Evil is at least endearing and pleasant to listen to in a hokey sort of way. I'm much more attached to Resident Evil's hammy characters than any of the Wacko Warner sounding dorks in Xenoblade.

I'd say Trauma Center New Blood has some really good voice acting, especially for a Wii game. I wouldn't say it's the worst since it's entertaining, but there's the game "Last Alert", made famous by Retsupurae back in the day.

Well that long weekend was a total bother, but getting a day off is the price to pay for no mail. I made good use of that day off and reorganized my bedroom though. I finally got rid of a gigantic desk that's been taking up space, but MAN was it a bitch to haul downstairs and out to the car. My back was a total mess the next day because of it, but I didn't get to the point where I completely wrecked it. Thankfully there was mail today, and a bunch of stuff showed up! Calling was one of the last Hudson games I wanted for the Wii, so now I'm only missing some sequels to their other games. A concept trailer for this game was leaked to Youtube prior to its release, and that video was way scarier than what the game ended up as. Sadly the video was quickly removed, and has never resurfaced anywhere. I decided to skip the game when it came out, but now I'm finally going to play it this October. Hudson of all people making a horror game should be interesting. Cursed Mountain is another horror game I picked up for October, but I honestly know nothing about it. All I know is that it's a very underground cult classic, and people who like the game swear it's an underrated gem. De Blob 2 is a game I've always been curious about after how much wasted potential the first game was. De Blob 2 supposedly fixed all of the issues with the original game, so I'm anxious to play it. Unfortunately the copy I ordered is scratched to hell and doesn't work, so I'll probably be waiting a while. -___- Between the original Hot Shots Golf, Mario Golf, and We Love Golf, Camelot sure gets commissioned to make golf games a lot. This version looks pretty great though, and I'm happy to see a Camelot golf game without Mario characters that I didn't know about. I do have to wonder why Capcom felt it was a priority to put out a Wii exclusive golf game though. Capcom and Konami supported the Wii surprisingly well with exclusives, and I've never quite understood why. That's all for me this time!

When it comes to foreign shows and movies, I would always rather watch it with subtitles. If it's a french movie, I want to watch it in french. If it's an anime, I usually want to watch it in Japanese. Video games are special though, as the voice acting has only recently become good. I will always prefer playing a game in English, as terrible video game voice acting is nostalgic and endearing to me. What I particularly love is when bad actors are still able to sell a moment and trigger an emotional response. It somehow makes those moments even more heartwarming. Bad acting has the strange potential to feel more human than professional acting, due to "unnatural" speech patterns making it into the final cut. I don't want video games to become Hollywood movies, as I hate modern Hollywood movies. Video games have always been extremely stupid, and I want them to stay cute and endearing forever. So with games, the dub is the only way to go.

I know I'm the only person saying anything nice about these games these days, but I replayed all of Deca Sports 2 and had a total blast. Even though one of the mini-games is only winnable in theory, the other nine mini games are fantastic and make for a better league mode than the original. While the Deca Sports games are low budget Hudson games, they're still legitimate games that were always meant to be good. Every other company that made a Wii Sports clone did so solely to cash in, and were only trying to trick people into buying them. I genuinely enjoy Deca Sports more than Wii Sports, and a lot of that is due to the former's focus on making a difficult single player experience. Finishing the league on legend difficulty is no joke, and defeating twenty consecutive opponents for challenge mode Kendo is also really hard. "Person 20" can sense your fear; and will mercilessly end your streak at nineteen if you're nervous. Struggling through nineteen opponents only to have "Person 20" instantly end your streak is the best example of how heartless Deca Sports 2 can be. Overall this game is great, and I actually had more fun the second time around. I get the feeling this won't be the last time I play through Deca Sports 2.

Endless games ripped off Wii Sports and Wii Fit for more modern examples.

I had it happen to me again, and it hadn't happened to me in years. My indecision about buying this game is actually what inspired this thread in the first place, and I have to thank all of your responses for helping me do the right thing. I've been collecting Wii games for a few months now, and I was hoping to get each of Nintendo's franchises that came out on Wii. I bought Rhythm Heaven Fever back when it came out, so I was really frustrated about its current price. I never even liked Rhythm Heaven to begin with, but I wanted it for the Nintendo series set. I made an offer to someone, and they sent me a really good counter offer. It was a massive discount honestly, and yet even at a price of $160.00, I couldn't deal with paying so much for a game I never even liked. I decided to decline the offer, and a weight was lifted from my shoulders immediately. After that I looked through my Wii games and decided to sell some of them. I sold my copy of Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn, Sin & Punishment Star Successor, Animal Crossing City Folk, WarioWare Smooth Moves, Wii Sports Resort, and Wii Play Motion. From now on I'll only pick up games from the Nintendo series I care about. I'm not a big enough fan of Nintendo anymore to convince myself that I like all of their series, so from now on I'll just buy the ones I enjoy like a normal person. Now my first party Wii line up is Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Donkey Kong, Punch Out!!, Excite Truck, Kirby and Pokemon. That's all I really need, as those are the series that actually mean something to me. Glad to see so many others open up and take part in this thread, as I think it's an important thing to think about. I don't want to spend my whole life doing this, so hopefully there will come a time when I can tell myself I don't need anything else.

Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. So in other words all the outdated hardware.

Favourite Robot Master: Iceman! He's one of the only robot masters that's designed to be cute! I love him. Favourite Stage: Easily Tornado Man from Mega Man 9. It's a long stage with really great level gimmicks, incredible music, and a super fun boss fight at the end. Favourite Song: My vote goes to Elecman. It's so different from every other Mega Man tune, and really captures climbing high into the sky. Mega Man Elecman Theme Mega Man Dr. Wily's Revenge Elecman Theme Mega Man The Wily Wars Elecman Theme Favourite Weapon: Without a doubt it's Iceman's weapon. No other weapon has as many possibilities as freezing an enemy in place. It's one of the most broken weapons in the series, but only if you're clever with it.

Only a few days left! Though I've ordered everything I'm going to at this point. Some new arrivals from today! I've never played Skyward Sword before, and to this day I know next to nothing about it. I know people weren't fans of it, and I know about Fi and Ghirahim, but not anything about them when it comes to the plot. I never played it back when it came out as funds were a lot tighter back then, and I could never justify a full priced game that needed a new controller. Octomania is another case of "every dog has its day", as noted garbage publisher Conspiracy Entertainment put out a real game in 2008. It's a port of a Compile Heart arcade game, and it's pretty fun! It's not some glorious lost classic seeing as how it's just a puzzle game, but it's cute and challenging at the same time. Classic stuff. Lastly there's the reboot of A Boy and His Blob, made by Wayforward back when they were good. This version of A Boy and His Blob takes the transformation mechanics of the first two games, but changes the open world structure into a mission based one. There are three treasures in each stage, and collecting all three in every level is where this game really shines. There's also some boss fights, but they were pretty terrible to be honest. Overall this game is great though, and one of the last Wayforward games that meant anything to me. (Mighty Milky Way being the last one I liked) See you in the next update!

I finished Deca Sports 2! Deca Sports 2's league mode works similarly to the original's, but it's much harder this time around. Not only are there four difficulty levels now, but Deca Sports 2 only gives out victories to two of the three rival teams. This assures that it's a much tighter competition than before, as the original game handed out victories to all three teams at random. Unfortunately the Petanque mini-game is completely broken and 100% unwinnable, so you have to plan to take a loss there. This is the ONLY loss Deca Sports 2 will give you the leeway to lose, so you need to win all nine other sports. Due to Petanque being completely broken, this also means you can't 100% the game, as tournament mode is unwinnable. I tried for WAY too many hours to find a way, but it's simply broken. This is why I was so harsh on Deca Sports 2 in my write up of the first one, but being able to finish league mode makes my opinion of this game much higher again. Completing the league on hard difficulty will make the credits roll, but this is kind of the bad ending. Once you beat hard, you unlock legend difficulty. By winning the league on legend, you not only unlock the Super Heroes as a playable team, but you get an additional screen at the end of the credits that confirms you've truly beaten the game this time. Only present on the legend difficulty credits. While it had its ups and downs, I do think this is a fun game despite some inexcusable issues. It's superior to the original in almost all aspects, but it's hard to look past one of the mini-games being broken. Overall I enjoyed my time with Deca Sports 2. I guess it's time to go back to the third game and see if I can finish the trilogy!

I've mentioned it to a few people on the site, but I've learned to just quit eBay during October every year. Canada Post always falls behind during the holidays, and tons of mistakes start happening the busier it gets. During November and December is when parcels simply don't show up due to post office mayhem, and I've had enough frustrating experiences during those months to know it's not even worth trying. The first of October is always my cut off date for ordering things, and I don't start using the site again until the first of March when things have settled down. This means October is a month that I save money for, as it's the last chance that I can pick up things I really want before I'm restricted to shopping locally. It's a fun thing to do, and I thought I'd document it this year since I'm on this site. Whenever a game shows up from this last blast of eBay shopping, I'll post it in this thread. There will likely be a lot of back to back posting as a result, but hopefully people will follow along. Once all of the parcels arrive, I'll then document the following months of shopping locally. The thread will be over once March arrives, and I'll return to the big group thread! eBay ordering cut off date! : October 1st, 2022! Five days remain! The first arrival is Natsume's Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny. This game has very mixed opinions amongst fans of the series, but I adore it. If you enjoy slice of life anime, this is something you'll really enjoy. Rune Factory Tides of Destiny is a very laid back anime RPG with lovable characters, and lots of menial chores and tasks. If that makes the scenery behind you turn pink while you close your eyes, then you'll love this game. If such a thing makes you sneer as you hunch over and droop your arm, then you won't like this game. The games will likely be coming in fast, so keep an eye out every day! Follow along on my eBay vacation, and consider going on one yourself this holiday season. It has the added bonus of putting less strain on the post office, so help out your fellow shoppers and take a little vacation. See you in the next update!

Over the past month or two I've been picking up Hudson and Bandai-Namco games for the Wii. Bomberman Land is a spin-off series of Bomberman games where you complete mini-game challenges in a theme park. The DS games were particularly good, though this one can't quite compare. Wing Island is a mission based flight game where you use various formations with your squad to complete tasks. Fishing Master is a charming and fun fishing game where you complete an encyclopedia of fish, and also compete in fishing tournaments. Deca Sports is a mini-game collection of ten sports. You can compete in tournaments for each sport, win medals for sub-games based on each sport, and compete in a league where all ten sports are played consecutively. Help Wanted is a story based mini-game collection. A meteorite is heading towards earth, and the only way to blow it up is to transform into a super hero with the transformo-watch. By signing up for jobs every day, you'll slowly build up the money needed to buy the transformo-watch and save the world. Lost in Shadow is a game where your shadow has been separated from your body, and thrown off a tower. Your goal is to climb back up by traversing the shadows, and reunite with your body. I also picked up some Bandai Namco Games. That's all for me this time!

I actually like how the faded one looks. The white patches look more like Ken Sugimori's original watercolor art style. I wouldn't change a thing personally.

I've been on a Hudson kick lately, and I ordered a copy of "Calling" for Wii. It's not the sort of game the company usually made, so I'm interested to see some low budget Hudson horror. It will probably take a couple of weeks to arrive, so it'll be perfect timing to play it for October.

I finished everything in the original Deca Sports for Wii! All ten tournaments, everything in challenge mode, and all three leagues. I decided to do a little write up on the game since I had such a great time with it. People often look at these games and instantly dismiss them as Wii Sports rip-offs, going as far as to call them shovelware. The truth of the matter is that they were developed and published by Hudson, which simply produced low budget games. Fans of Hudson were always aware of this, but reviewers were never willing to cut them any slack. Obviously this game wouldn't exist without the success of Wii Sports, but Deca Sports makes a very concerted effort to have no overlap with Wii Sports. The game has an interesting line up of events as a result, and makes for a more unique package than the same five sports Nintendo has been making since the NES. Two of the key differences between Deca Sports and Wii Sports is that Deca Sports has an end goal, and as a result leans heavily on the single player experience. While all of the games are technically playable with two humans, the games are best played against the A.I. There are three main game modes where you can win medals and trophies, so let's go over them. Tournament Mode: Your team will duke it out in 2-3 matches depending on the event, with the A.I getting more difficult each match. There's only one tournament per sport, which makes for a shorter and simpler experience than the four tournaments in the sequels. That doesn't mean the A.I on the final match is a pushover though. Deca Challenge: This is where each sport is redesigned into a single player mini-game, which doubles as a practice mode to master each sport's controls. Beach volleyball's challenge tasks you with spiking the ball into highlighted sections on the other side of the net. Archery's challenge tasks you with hitting a target from farther and farther away, and the racing events have time attacks for each track. Each event has a borderline score that needs to be met to unlock a medal, and these are some of the trickier challenges in the game. Deca League: This mode has you play in all ten sports, and compete for points with three other teams. Points are distributed depending on how you place, meaning you can still win the league even if you lose some of the events. In this mode your athletes can become fatigued, but they can also become enthusiastic. These states hinder or improve your athlete's abilities, making you have to decide who to bring to an event. Size matters in Deca Sports too, so different builds of athlete excel at different sports. Having your ideal athlete become tired for an event they're good at will force you to decide who should take their place. There are three leagues that increase in difficulty, and during the final league a new team of masked players will compete against you. Completing the final league will make the end credits roll, and unlock the "Super Heroes" as a playable team. I genuinely enjoyed this game, and it was a fun time the whole way through. Deca Sports 2 was a broken mess, and Deca Sports 3 suffered from a whole host of issues; but the original is a great little game. It was challenging without being unreasonable, and it was thoroughly charming despite its low budget. The music during the actual sports could have been better, but the victory themes are all great. Unfortunately the credits theme doesn't seem to be on Youtube with the rest of the soundtrack, so I may be one of the only people who's ever heard it. Most importantly the motion controls all work well enough that you can beat every challenge in the game. Deca Sports 2 is a game that's completely unwinnable due to its broken controls and flawless A.I, which is a shame considering how much more polished it is than the original. It just goes to show that you can make a really lovely piece of artwork, but in gaming it's still the game that matters the most. At the end of the day if your game doesn't work, it matters not how improved it is elsewhere. This is how you need to look at the Deca Sports trilogy, and it's why the original is easily the best of the three. ~Lynda Monica Watson

I might make a blog post about this as I have things to say about this game, but I rated it a four. There are many better alternatives, and I think Thousand Year Door compares very poorly to the original. If I were to give an incredibly brief version of my complaints though, it'd be the following. I hate the game's edgy tone. The level design is horrendous

I've been slowing down on purchases lately as I've been taking the time to play and enjoy the Wii games I've been buying. I picked up some more of my old favourites recently. One of the things I love about the Wii is how many original I.P came out for it, many of which are still exclusive to it. Zack & Wiki is a mission based point & click adventure game, which was and still is a genius concept. Each stage places a treasure chest at the end of a dangerous scenario, and you're tasked with safely adventure gaming your way to it. It's an incredibly fun game, and one you should all check out if you haven't by now. Kororinpa Marble Mania is the best Wii remote game of all time, because it only uses the features of the Wii remote that work perfectly. Kororinpa is a marble maze game, and it controls entirely with Wii remote tilting. It not only works 100% flawlessly, but the game itself is incredibly fun and charming. It's easily Hudson's best game on the Wii, and it's infinitely better than its own sequel. It's not a very long game, but it's one of the best Wii games you'll ever play. Personally, it's my favourite game on the system. The original We Cheer was a game with tons of promise, but completely ruined by its overly strict scoring system. We Cheer 2 not only fixed that issue, but improved everything else to such a degree that it made the original game pointless. If you were one of the ten people who could play the original We Cheer though, We Cheer 2 still allows you to play the songs on advanced difficulty with the original scoring system. The game doesn't have an ocean of content, but there are 30 songs, and extra songs for workout mode. The big draw of We Cheer 2 is the extensive character customization options. All 30 tracks in the game have unique cheer routines, all motion captured by real cheerleaders. Being able to customize your squad of ten gals and five guys to do these cool routines is fun, and you're constantly unlocking new hairstyles, clothing, and accessories. I was able to make my Miitopia team of ten Miis into We Cheer 2 characters, and the game sprung to life due to my personalized squad. During the action it's kind of hard to see the routines, but thankfully the game includes a "Watch Routine" option to just let you watch your squad dance. It may sound like a dumb girl game, but this game genuinely rocks. I think both genders can enjoy it, as the girls are cute enough that guys will get something out of that, and the gameplay is fun no matter who you are. It's easily one of the Wii's best games that time forgot, and I highly recommend it. I also love the selection of music, which can best be described as incredibly bratty. Grooving Blocks is a fairly standard block falling puzzle game, but the gimmick is that it's also a rhythm game. If you've ever played Tetris, there's a good chance you've dropped pieces in time with the music just for fun. Groovin' Blocks takes that natural instinct and turns it into a mechanic, and rewards players for dropping pieces to the beat frequently. For each piece you drop in time with the beat, your score multiplier increases. Should you drop a piece off beat, your multiplier gets reset. Each stage has three stars to earn based on how high you score, and earning stars unlocks more music. This ensures that players aim for high scores by playing the game the way you're supposed to, as you won't earn any stars without dropping to the beat. The music is worth mentioning too, as it's all originally composed beats. The music leans heavily toward club music, which is fine by me. It's also worth mentioning that this was originally a WiiWare game, but did well enough to warrant a beefed up retail release with loads of extra content. The final thing worth noting is that this was published by ZOO, a company not known for publishing worthwhile content. They say every dog has its day, and Groovin' Blocks was certainly a good day for ZOO. Lastly we have a game that's genuinely awesome, but doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. MiniCopter Adventure Flight is a game where you control RC helicopters in confined areas. There aren't a ton of missions in the game, but it's a fun experience like Kororinpa and We Cheer 2 that you'll revisit often due to its brevity. There's not too much to say about this game since it's a pretty simplistic mission based flight game, but its the concept that makes it so fun. Moments like having to carefully steer around a bedroom and not crash into the HD TV really sell the world you're piloting in, while also having the same tension as crashing into a skyscraper in any other piloting game. It may not be one of the most grand or epic games of all time, but it's genuinely fantastic, and certainly something that's flown under the radar. (Nailed it 10/10 pun) Oh, and you'll want to shell out for a classic controller. The motion controls are fine, but it's way more fun to pilot without them. That's all for me this time!

I took a bit of a break to play something else, but I'm back to Deca Sports 2. All four kendo tournaments complete! How to Play: Hit left and right on the D-Pad to approach or back away from your opponent. Swing the Wii remote sideways to attack with a body shot. There's technically more to this game, but none of it matters. Each kendo match consists of three rounds where two points win the round. Kendo rounds are often determined in the first three seconds, making these the shortest tournaments in the game. The key to knowing what to do is in the first half second of the match, where you have to immediately notice if your opponent is walking toward or away from you. If they're walking away, take a step forward and do a body shot. If they're walking toward you, take a step back, then forward again, and do a body shot. If your eyes are quick enough, you'll win nearly every time. I was able to complete all four Kendo tournaments in roughly forty minutes, having never once played it before. By far the quickest and easiest mini-game yet. Five out of ten sports complete! We're at the half way point, doing great so far!

Nintendo in particular tends to alter things in their virtual console re-releases, and Kirby's Dream Land 3 is the best example I know of where the original cartridge is still the definitive version. In the boss rush mode of the virtual console version, they altered the background colour palette of the final boss to make it easier to see its attacks. However they somehow screwed up the audio tracks in the process, making large chunks of final boss melody not play. This is present in every digital version of the game, and on Kirby's Dream Collection for Wii. For most games it's not really an issue though, so it's more a case by case thing. I think modern game collections are great for people who don't have access to the old systems, and I do think there's something to be said about the old systems being essentially incompatible with modern TVs.

Not gonna lie, nothing excited me. I just can't get too excited for endless sequels anymore. Also what the hell is with King Dedede's redesign in Return to Dream Land Deluxe? He looks like the crappy N64 Dedede. Was that something they decided to do with Dedede lately? If that's just how he looks now, I don't like that decision at all. Nintendo Directs are still entertaining to watch at least, even if they haven't resulted in much for me during the Switch's life cycle. I think I'm ready to just sell my switch since it's gotten very little use. I only have a few games for it, none of which I'd miss if I got rid of them. I'll probably do it some time this week. If you all found a game you're pumped about, I'm glad you found one.

Maybe I should have been more specific. That being said, keep fighting the good fight.

I genuinely love how boastful this site is allowed to get about our hard earned collections, as other collector forums tend to downplay that aspect. However something I don't see a lot of as a result are those stories of humility where we had to listen to our conscience and tell ourselves "you can't have that". Be it for a wildly unjustifiable price you had to draw the line at, a moment of guilt, or anything else that may have made you look at yourself and say "this isn't something I should do". Back when I was collecting Game Boy Colour games, I had been dying to pick up a boxed copy of Survival Kids. They almost never appeared for sale, and they were usually over three-hundred dollars. One day a wonderful copy popped up for $250, but it would have left me a little tight on funds for a little too long. I was on the checkout screen thinking about it very hard, when my better judgement kicked in and I said out loud "Lynda, you can't have that." It was at that moment when I realized I was done collecting GBC games, and moved on to something else. I never ended up with a boxed Survival Kids, and I have no regrets about it as I feel I made the right choice. Let's hear all your moments of pure clarity!