The Tetris 99 community on Twitch joins me to take on the world! How many can we win in support of Extra Life? We also discuss gaming chairs and ponder how Halloween is going to work this year.
View the full post to see the full stream, highlights, and shoutouts!
Pierre has notified us that we can now give our one true love a bouquet of flowers to demonstrate that we’re serious. But who will we propose to? Haley or Abigail?
View the full post to see the full stream, highlights, and shoutouts!
With Super Mario 3D All-Stars currently in my Switch, I dive back into Super Mario 64 since it released in 1996. Is it still a banger?
View the full post to see the full stream, highlights, and shoutouts!
jennathefool and bythesav join Switch To Decaf, PlayerTwoStart and I form like Voltron for the sake of the kids! Again, we’re making donations for every win in Overwatch. How many can we get?
Click through for the full stream, highlights, and shoutouts!
Wanting to escape the soul-crushing corporate world, you retreat to the farm that once belonged to your grandfather. The cabin is tiny and wilderness has reclaimed the land, but with a lot of elbow grease, you can restore it to its former glory.
Thus, your adventure in Stardew Valley begins. Even with over 10 million sold since its 2016 launch, I still found a patch of land to call my own.
Over the past few months, I’ve made some serious strides towards slaying the spire. I’ve beaten the game with every class at least once. Still working on conquering the “secret” 4th level and unlocking the game’s true ending.
All four classes have their strengths and weaknesses. But which one is my favourite to play as? Let’s rank them!
Silent and deadly in the right hands (sorry), The Silent has so many cool tools at her disposal. I love her poison mechanic and I love raining on my foes with daggers. Nevertheless, she was the one I struggled to beat the game with the most.
She can do so much on the offensive end, but her low health and defensive options feel a bit too all-or-nothing. I also feel like it’s really difficult to build an all-around hand with The Silent. Maybe I’m just a scrub, but it feels like focusing your efforts on one aspect of her toolkit works better than trying to have a bit of everything. Even so, she’s still a ton of fun to play and quite the power trip when you’ve got the right build.
The Watcher has some of my favourite cards in the entire game. The Alpha > Beta > Omega setup that eventually unlocks 50 damage every turn is mind-blowing! When the stars align, she’s an absolute wrecking ball. I managed to beat the game with The Watcher long before maxing out the character and unlocking all of her kit.
At the same time, she can also be the ultimate glass cannon if you get caught in the wrong stance. In her powered-up Wrath stance, she deals double damage at the cost of eating double damage. It’s critical to mastering her, but even great runs can literally disintegrate in one turn if you mess up the timing. She might be the character I’m most effective with, but I feel like I’m walking on eggshells throughout.
Compared to the other characters, The Ironclad’s play style is a bit…vanilla. Though you don’t have to manage any extra layers of depth, there’s definitely an art to climbing the tower with The Ironclad.
What makes The Ironclad rank so high on my list is his raw damage output. Many of his cards hit hard at face value and can be absolutely devastating if you build the right deck to amplify his firepower. I also like a few of his key tools that allow him to block and attack at the same time. Great character to learn the game with or fight with to unlock the true ending!
Every character in Slay the Spire is a joy to play. But if I’m forced in a position to only play one class, I’m going with my favourite: The Defect. This robot is designed around engine-building, where many of its powers come from managing orbs that grant a myriad of active and passive abilities. Though it takes some work to get The Defect going, it can be developed into an absolute unit. Best of all, its fundamental design allows for a ton of play style flexibility. If I’m going to truly slay the spire, I’m aiming to do it first with The Defect!
I’m standing on a tightrope. Somewhere above me is a red coin. Despite repeated attempts at snagging it from the sky, I can’t quite seem to snag it. An angry cloud is whooshing back-and-forth, trying its best to snipe me out of the sky.
Again, I leap. Hurtling towards the coin, the angry cloud finally tags me. Reeling from the pain, my Mario falls like a rock to the lake below. In time with the splash, my controller gets spiked into the ground…again.
We stumble into an awkward moment between Abigail and Pierre. Also, we finally crack into the meteor on our front lawn! What could possibly be inside?
View the full post to see the full stream, highlights, and shoutouts!
On a quest to donate $5 for every individual win, the Tetris 99 community comes through to spice things up! How many wins can we get as a team? I am truly overwhelmed by the incredible support from everyone on this stream and I can’t thank you enough!
View the full post to see the full stream, highlights, and shoutouts!
In a matter of days, Super Mario will return to the Switch in Super Mario 3D All-Stars! This compilation includes Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy. Though I have experienced all three during their initial releases, I’m excited to try them again with a fresh pair of eyes. Before doing that, I thought I’d share my recollections of each!
Months before its release in North America, I got a chance to play Super Mario 64 at Ontario Place. In a world where gaming was still a 2D medium, maneuvering Mario in a 3D environment was the first time I truly felt like I was experiencing the future of gaming. From that point onward, I brainwashed my younger brother to spend all of his birthday money on a Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64.
For its time, it was truly groundbreaking. Mario single-handedly took the entire medium of gaming into the third dimension. I couldn’t believe how incredibly fun it was to jump, back flip, and triple jump my way through these environments. Just days after we got our console, I saved the princess yet again.
As impactful as this game was on my life, I literally haven’t played it in decades. I’m not the type of player that revisits games I’ve already completed; a behaviour that really started with this game. Looking forward to seeing how much of the experience still holds up by today’s standards!
I vividly remember disliking Super Mario Sunshine a whole lot. Despite its colourful graphics and one of the most unique soundtracks of the franchise, its camera controls drove me nuts. There was one particular level where you have to scale a multi-leveled tower of mushrooms that was a nightmare to navigate because I couldn’t get a good look at where I needed to go. I never did finish Sunshine and until recently, had no plans to return.
Now that it’s part of this collection, I will give it another shot. My gut says much of my criticisms will remain, but I hope that time has healed those wounds!
Heralded by many as Mario’s best 3D outing, Super Mario Galaxy did not grab me at the time. Even when I wrote about how ambivalent the game made me feel, I acknowledged how many great things it was doing. Maybe with a clear mind, I’ll give this one a fair shake!
Are you looking forward to revisiting these classic Mario games? Or are you playing these for the first time? Let me know in the comments!
In Third Person 