Switch Funday - Fire Emblem - My First Time - I Had Fun

Welcome to Switch Funday!

I have never played any game in the Fire Emblem series, so when Nintendo announced the GBA version of Fire Emblem is coming to the Nintendo Switch Online service i was eager to try it out. Going in, i wasn't really sure what was going to happen. i had heard games in the series have a death mechanic and a relationship mechanic, but i didn't know if this game did or if it did to what extent it has it.

I'm glad i played it as i had a good time. it kinda felt like a console game due to the slow pace, not in a negative way, of the story and the amount of tutorials the game introduced us to over the first couple of chapters. i came away thinking that this might be a long game. but the first hour i played went really well.

the world was nicely introduced, our main character's story was simple and then there was a twist. it was nice that when i mentioned a character was being annoying, it was clear it was intentional and brought up in game. the in-game art looks great and clear on my TV. the only downside of seeing the game this big was that some of the text was a tad blurry or not as clear as i would like.

Nothing about the introduction seemed overwhelming and i appreciated how the game managed it's first hour. some of the story is a little predictable but it never really detracted from the game. i'd go so far as to say that Fire Emblem did enough in this first hour to get it's hooks into me and i'd be up for playing more of this game. i really do recommend people give this a go.

Switch Funday - River City Ransom - My First Time

Welcome to Switch Funday!

For many years i've heard countless people on websites, podcasts, YouTube, etc talk positively about River City Ransom and it's series of games. i've never owned any of them nor played any of them but when i was browsing the Nintendo Switch Online platform apps i saw it. so i decided to play River City Ransom for the first time via the NES version.

All i knew going in, from what i had heard over the years, was that the music and graphics were great and that it played well. after playing it, i can say that they were right. the music was fun and a couple of tunes sounded familiar. the story was simple, to the point,  but  perhaps a tad light. tho i admit i didn't complete the game so there could be more to it. but what was there was enough to explain what we were doing and to get me to move forward.

the typical side scroller issue of not being in the correct row as your opponent was frustrating, but much newer games have also failed to completely fix this so i didn't hold it against River City Ransom but i felt that it's worth mentioning. the game's checkpointing, tho, is worth talking about as it's one of the reasons i stopped a little earlier than planned. when i was fighting close to the shops, it putting me back to the last of the shops made sense. but as i moved further and further away, it kept bringing me back to the shops which meant a longer and longer walk/run to where i was. and with enemies respawning, there was no save area. at the end, i just ran and avoided all of them.

River City Ransom being on this service means that i could rewind gameplay to before i died. and whilst that's certainly an option, the lack of recovery, or seeming lack of it, whilst i was away from the shops also was frustrating. i didn't use the rewind feature because there was no point. if there was no way to get more health, then rewinding was pointless as i was just going to die anyway. i thought that it would be quicker to just dies and respawn than try to rewind my way through the game.

I don't know if was about to reach a new respawn point, and yes the game is old and the first of it's series, so whilst what i said above did become frustrating, it didn't break the game for me. i happily created a suspend point and i intend on coming back to the game in the future. if you have this game as part of Nintendo Switch Online, then i do agree with what people have being saying for a long time now, it's well worth playing and i did enjoy myself.

Online Saturday - Splatoon 3 - June's Big Run Event

Welcome to Online Saturday!

This weekend is June's Big Run Event in Splatoon 3. This event has the Salmonids attacking the Undertow Spillway map. this is the biggest difference between the regular Salmon Run mode and Big Run. Salmon Run has it's own set of maps whereas Big Run uses maps from the online mutliplayer. 

Today's video is a little longer than usual as i had two attempts at beating the King Salmonoid. both times tho ended up in failure. Out of the 11 Big Run matches i did, i only managed to complete 3 of them. My high score from the event is 68 Golden Eggs. trying to get the most Golden Eggs is the goal of Big Run. at the end, my high score of 68 will go up against the high scores of everyone else who tried it.

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - Playing The First Challenge Event

Welcome to Switch Funday.

I teased it in yesterday's video, https://youtu.be/RRILIgS2XWU, that i was going to try and do the first Challenge Event. i managed to get in 10 battles, winning 4, before i ran out of time.

What you'll hear throughout a lot of this video is confusion as i try to work out how this Challenge Event works. whilst the new weapons were all clearly shown, i feel like what this event is wasn't explained clearly enough. i feel that by the end, i got somewhat of a grasp of what this was all about. i'll try to explain it, but feel free to add in the comments if i make a mistake.

For the first Challenge Event, the challenge was simply playing the two new levels that were added in patch 4.0.0 (the Sizzle Update). a restriction was that only the primary ability of your gear would be activated (the first pin on your gear, not any other pins). A level/score for your ability is created over 5 matches. for me that was 808. any wins after that increases that score, whilst losses reduce that score. (i tried to show this a couple of times in this video). the "winners" are those who rank with the highest scores. you could play any of the three time slots, your highest score across all three would be your final score.

Looking at the Splatoon 3 Wiki, https://splatoonwiki.org/wiki/Challenge, it seems there's another challenge on June 6th so i may have a go trying to get in at least 1 time slot. the following other Challenges are listed but i don't know if i'll have time to try them all. but the challenge on 15th June sounds fun as i'll get to try out randomly selected weapons.

Online Saturday - Splatoon 3 - Playing The 4.0.1 Update

Welcome to Online Saturday.

Splatoon 3 got it's big Sizzle Season update with patch 4.0.0 so this weekend i'm back trying it out. for me, i'm playing with the latest 4.0.1 patch.

The Splatoon wiki, https://splatoonwiki.org/wiki/Sizzle_Season_2023, has a great breakdown of what was added to the game. I had hoped to try out some of the new stuff and thankfully my catalogue level was high enough to try out the new main weapon Painbrush. the stage rotation meant i didn't get to try out Barnacle & Dime or Humpback Pump Track, but i do have a video coming for Switch Funday where i try them out. they were part of this weekends new Challenge Mode.

I got to play 14 matches today but only managed to win 5 of them. as ever it was fairly competitive and there were some close games. there was also 1 disconnection but i'm not worried about that. 

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - Zelda's May Splatfest - 15 Tricolor Battles!

Welcome to Switch Funday!

This weekend is the Zelda Splatfest so today i'm back with Splatoon 3 to take part of the Tricolor mode. if your unfamiliar with this mode, it pits all 3 teams against each other. there's always a team of 4 with the other two being teams of 2. those teams of s have to try and work together to beat the team of 4.

I got in 15 games today and thankfully there were less connection issues than in yesterday's Splatfest video, https://youtu.be/a3nPOvWj58s, tho my controller did die in the 14th match! i felt that today's matches were also far closer and more competitive than yesterday. my teammates and i got in 6 wins out of the 15 matches, far more than yesterday.

Online Saturday - Splatoon 3 - Zelda's May Splatfest - 13 Games, 4 Wins!

Welcome to Online Saturday.

It's a Splatfest weekend so today's video is on the Zelda Splatfest in Splatoon 3.

The firs thing i should mention is that this video is more edited than usual. due to a combination of disconnections, wind, and deliveries (or banging on my door due to win), this video ballooned to over an hour and 15 minutes and became somewhat disjointed. so there'll be times when my weapon changes or i comment about the disconnections. Going forward, i may try this more edited format in tomorrow's Tri Color video.

As for the Splatfest, well i didn't get many wins. what i noticed was that there wasn't just one team dominating. Normally, i get a feel as to which team is doing better than the others. but today, it felt like both other teams were coming out strong. throughout the video you'll see i'm up against teams who are taking this much more seriously than i am by looking at the pins they've attached or the weapons they're using. i wonder if the theme, The Legend of Zelda, has brought a more serious gamer to the Splatfest rather than something a little less serious like April's Monster Splatfest.

Online Saturday - Tetris 99 - Getting Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe Edition Theme

Welcome to Online Saturday!

Today i'm playing Tetris 99 on Nintendo Switch. This weekend it's a special event where you can earn a Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe theme by earning 100 points.

this video ended up being a little longer than i expected. i had treid to do an extra video at the end with a little commentary about how it had gone. but i hadn't started recording my audio so in the end there are 3 extra matches of Tetris 99 after i got the theme.

Getting the theme wasn't too bad. apart from 1 game, i think i got into the top 50 each time. of course my goal is top try and win one as i've never managed to do that in all the games of Tetris 99 i've played. some of the games in this video were especially challenging as it felt like i was always on the defensive. i was being attacked so much that all i could do is clear what they had sent my way meaning i didn't have a chance to send much to them. a couple of matches also felt like there were taking a long time, like we were all hanging in for a long time.

It's a nice theme. Let me know how the cup went for you. did you get a win?

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - Getting April's Salmon Run Item

Welcome to Switch Funday.

Today i went and got April's Salmon Run item, the Deep Sinker Helm. 

it took nearly an hour and it was mostly fun. i didn't enjoy using a sniper weapon and there were plenty of occasions where my teammates were not using the message function (on the bottom left of the screen) but overall it wasn't that bad. thankfully my ranking didn't go down and it actually went up by the end of the hour. a couple of times we had stages where the Goldie would appear so we got lots of golden eggs and lots of points.

But this was another Salmon Run day where my team couldn't beat the King Salmonid. often, including today, my teammates and i can get it below half health. but it's been a long time since i''ve been on a team that's beaten one. there were a couple of big losses, too. i couldn't try out this weekends Eggstra Work so let me know how it went and how it differs from Salmon Run.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Academy Cup 2 - Achievement Run

Welcome to Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday! Sit back and either watch me play through, with no commentary, the cup or leave it running in the background as BGM!

I play and earn all the achievements from The Academy Cup 2! (2023/4/10 9:00～2023/4/17 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.

This was a bad week. i didn't win a single game, nor did i get to the boss. i wasn't the only player having a bad week, a few i was up against also did poorly which meant i got into the top 3 a few times. i thought i understood the gimmick, that a space on the grid would rotate the color of a piece and i would need to make combos and getting a cross would be more points. but the fact that a piece would change color meant it took too much time waiting. it added an element of randomness and time wasting that i didn't enjoy. so not only was it a bad week, it wasn't a particularly fun week. a highlight is the amount of other players i played against, there were soo many!

This week i played against:

さい - Lvl 86

あいすのけしん - Lvl 65

チャッビー - Lvl 73

れ！いんいん＿TN＿ - Lvl 65

shun - Lvl 69

konimana - Lvl 62

HIROKUN - Lvl 74

ころん - Lvl 70

＾-＾ - Lvl 54

いもようかん - Lvl 66

マロン - Lvl 66

さいまる - Lvl 68

しらす - 52

shirasu - Lvl 70

FiIL - Lvl 52

ヤシ - Lvl 65

Switch Funday - Mario Kart 64 - My First Time

Welcome to Switch Funday!

I have been using the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack's Virtual Consoles to catch up with some games i've never played before. today, i chose to play Mario Kart 64. I recently tried out Mario Kart on the SNES, https://youtu.be/ytuZQssV_7Y, and this was the final Mario Kart i hadn't played before. i learned a lot about that game from user  @SuperNickid  , i recommend reading what they wrote if you're unfamiliar with that game.

i didn't quite know what this game would be. would it lean closer to the SNES version or would it lean closer to the GBA and GameCube versions. thankfully, it feels more arcadey, more balanced, and generally more fun to play. The reason this video is so long is because i tried every map!

there were a couple of things that still annoyed me about this version of the game. the main one is that you must finish in the top 4 to progress. that's more similar to the SNES original than later games. another was the lack of characters. i played as Kooper in the SNES game but that character was not in this one. thankfully the character's looked much better, much closer to how you imagined they look. a great example is how much better Yoshi looks.

Another big improvement were the weapons. in the SNES original, i learned how the weapons work as whilst playing it i couldn't understand what was happening. characters have their own weapons and they have endless amounts of them. here, it was much more familiar and it felt much more fair. if i have a complaint it's that the red shell Ai was really quite bad at times. i would say the drift mechanic was also much improved and it felt a more vital part of the gameplay. in the SNES version it's more a jump, but on the N64 it's more a drift that also can give you boost.

I had much more fun with this game. it feels more like the first game in the series than the original does. it also feels more fair and better balanced. even tho i lost some races, it didn't feel like it was the computer cheating. It's well worth trying and it still looks good, too!

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - April's Splatfest - An Hour Of Tricolor - 12 Matches But Only 3 Wins!

Welcome to Switch Funday.

As it's a Splatfest weekend, today i wanted to focus on the Sunday exclusive game mode called Tricolor. In the previous Chocolate Splatfest, https://youtu.be/f_IoorNHNJE, the Sunday Tricolor day was the first time the mode had worked perfectly since the game launched. It was mostly fine today, i got to play 12 games, but there were some disconnections, some games took a minute or more to match, and there were a couple of instances where no games could be found.

Yesterday, https://youtu.be/3u3lbMkhguM, i was able to play 12 matches but in all of them i was never up against the BIgfoot Team. between my Aliens teams and Nessie Teams, it was tied at 6 wins and 6 losses. However, today my Alien teams could only manage 3 wins! Tricolor is always difficult, but today felt far more competitive.

I was trying out a couple of new weapons i bought after yesterday's hour. i enjoyed the N-Zap '89 but found the Splatana Stamper more difficult. it'd be great if you could recommend a weapon i should try out. I'm normally a fan of the umbrellas, but i went more attacking this weekend and it was fun.

Online Saturday - Splatoon 3 - April's Splatfest - 1 Hour, 12 Matches, 6 Wins, But No Bigfoot Teams!

Welcome to Online Saturday.

As it's a Splatfest this weekend, today's Online Saturday focuses on Splatoon 3. this Splatfest is a fight between those who believe Nessie is real, that Aliens are real, or that Bigfoot is real. Myself, i chose the Aliens team as i really do believe that aliens are real.

It was one of me better Saturdays, too. i played 12 games and won half of them. the strange thing from today is that all 12 games were against Nessie teams. it could be that here in Japan/Asia, Nessie and Aliens were the top two and that Bigfoot has a bigger representation across America and Europe.

The sneak peak results had Aliens narrowly leading Nessie with Bigfoot a little bit behind. after today's games, it's hard to say who'll win the Splatfest out of Aliens or Nessie. there were some real close games and there were some really big losses. If you play against a Bigfoot team, let me know how good or bad they are.

Switch Funday - Super Fantasy Zone - My First Time

Welcome to Switch Funday!

This week i decided to try out the Mega Drive App that's part of the Nintendo Switch Online. i had a Mega Drive growing up so i have played many of the games on the app. one game i hadn't played was Super Fantasy Zone. but i had played the Master System original on, i think it was, the Wii.

So going in i knew it was going to be a side scrolling shooter, i thought that it might be similar to Gleylancer that i played as part of my Backlog Conquering series. because i had that expectation, when i saw i could change the amount of lives i had i did. i also made sure i remembered how to rewind the game when i died as i was sure i was going to die a lot.

And i wasn't wrong. the first couple of levels do go by quickly but i did die a lot. this kept happening up until i decided to stop playing. you can hear in my voice how frustrated i was getting. so i stopped before i got too angry.

the game does look great, everything is clear and distinct. the soundtrack is amazing, too. but there were some choices made that negatively affected it's gameplay. the level before i stopped playing, my biggest complaint was that enemies kept on respawning. the boss enemies were also becoming bullet sponges in a way that felt like they had leveled up faster than my own character.

So i'm glad i tried it but i doubt i'll go back and play it again. i did save it just in case i do.

Switch Funday - Sin and Punishment - My First Time

Welcome to Switch Funday!

I'm back trying out a N64 game on the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack service. Today, it's Sin and Punishment. It's a game i have heard off but never played.

i went in only knowing that it would be on rails. i didn't even know the state of the translation. only that it didn't get a western release on N64. so i was surprised that the in-game text was all in Japanese but the voice acting and menus were in English. 

I had a good time. this video is longer than i expected and ultimately i had to stop playing as i kept wanting to play a little more. it controls better than GoldenEye 007 did with the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, but it still wasn't perfect. there were many moments where i would go for the wrong button and in a game this fast it did cost me a few times. thankfully there was a training mode and i did that first. i didn't expect the training mode to have a boss tho!

it felt a little rough in places, like it being unclear how to avoid certain attacks almost as if we were expected not to. but it also felt like one of the biggest battlefields i had ever fought in on the N64. the epic battle against the battleships was a pleasant surprise. i had no idea the N64 could be capable of such a spectacle. But of course this is the Switch, there's every chance that on the N64 the performance wasn't quite there. but what would be the same is the looks. soo many things look different from each other. it was clear who was who and what enemy was what, whilst also looking very impressive.

It's a hard game that does feel it's age in places. but it really is worth trying. it won't be for everyone, but it's something worth experiencing.

Online Saturday - Splatoon 3 - March's Salmon Run

Welcome to Online Saturday

This Saturday i'm back with Splatoon 3. The goal for this video is simple, get this month's Salmon Run Gear. 

Last week was a Big Run event, you can watch it at https://youtu.be/ZnWSin5k7N8, and it included this month's Salmon Run gear as well as it's own item. so in a way i have already got the Astro Wear. but i did it whilst playing on a different level, rather than a Salmon Run level. i also found the Big Run event to be really difficult and not as fun as Salmon Run, so i decided to get the Astro Wear again. and like all my Salmon Run videos, get it twice and keep the best one.

You can see from the length of this video, it didn't go as well as i'd hope. there were many wins, but the losses were just as big too!

Online Saturday - Splatoon 3 - Big Run March Event

Welcome to Online Saturday!

I'm back with Splatoon 3 to try out the second Big Run event. i played by my usual Salmon Run rules, get enough points to earn the item twice so i can chose to keep the better of the two. But i didn't expect it to take soo long! 

This was such a rough event that i even dropped a level because of how bad it went. out of all the games played, i think i only managed to complete it three times. so this video is mostly just my team and i failing over and over again. i can't remember the previous Big Run event being soo difficult. i mention it in the video, but sometimes the randomness of these and Salmon Run events kinda doesn't work well and it leads to an unpleasant gaming experience as we lose.

But when we did win, it felt amazing. i think only once was it somewhat comfortable. the rest of the time it was very tight and for me personally it was a tense time. it was a bit of a shame that my team wasn't able to defeat the new King Salmonid that was added to the game. before it was a very tall and very rotund shaped creature but now it's like a Gyrados flying snake looking creature. this made trying to hit it difficult, well that and the fact the game throws everything at you. we came very close to defeating it but just not enough.

Switch Funday - Gargoyle's Quest - My First Time

Welcome to Switch Funday!

I wouldn't say i was excited about Game Boy games coming to the Nintendo Switch as it's a system that i didn't have much exposure to. i did have a Game Boy Color and i have tried some of the older Game Boy games. But most of my Game Boy Color playing time was spent on the Pokémon Games, V-Rally, Bust A Move, Legend of Zelda DX, and Tetris. With the initial launch selection being small, the only game that caught my attention was Gargoyle's Quest.

It's a game i've not heard of before and i was a little surprised to see that it was from Capcom. going in, i had no idea what i was in for. i think you can tell from my commentary that i was surprised how robust it is. but it's also from 1990 so there's some frustrating elements to it, things that were fairly common at the time like the lack of lives and poor checkpointing, but also other things that were as a result of the hardware, namely the lack of a save system.

The Switch adds a rewind feature that makes things more tolerable, but as you'll see i often forgot about it until the latter third of the video. there are other settings but i chose to play the game in it's default settings. it's unclear if i would have to close the game if i wanted to change any of the settings, but i feel that's the case and it's a bit of a shame. i can imagine someone will close the game, change a setting, go back in and realise that nothing has been saved. i did save it using the Switch's Suspend Point before i closed the game.

I don't know if i'll go back to the game. the music is good, the story is interesting as your playing from the Gargoyle's perspective, which is fairly unique, and the levels are varied. But it wasn't gelling with me. i didn't have the patience to deal with some of it's poorer qualities as a kid and i certainly don't now.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Valentine Cup 2 - Achievement Run

Welcome to Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday! Sit back and either watch me play through, with no commentary, the cup or leave it running in the background as BGM!

I play and earn all the achievements from The Valentine Cup 2! (2023/2/13 9:00～2023/2/20 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.

Last week's Valentine Cup 1 video, https://youtu.be/8XiX8VErAN4, was tough because i was playing against many skilled opponents. But this week's video starts with me fighting against the computer as for the first couple of games there was no one else. things improved and got more competitive later one. the gimmick this week wasn't as clear and i thought i knew what it was but ultimately i was guessing. that would help to explain why i found it so hard against the final boss, and even tho i did beat it once it was during a game where i felt i played fairly poorly. i think i always came in the top 3 this week, which is great and the main reason why this week's video is shorter than most recent ones.

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - February's Chocolate Splatfest - An Hour Of Tricolor!

Welcome to Switch Funday.

As it's a Splatfest weekend, today i wanted to focus on the Sunday exclusive game mode called Tricolor. In previous Splatfests, this game mode hasn't worked as well as i would like. at most i'd get into 2 or 3 games and often there would be a disconnection causing the games to end. The game had been updated so i went in hoping for better, but i was expecting things to stay the same.

But this whole video is an hour of just Tricolor games! there were no disconnections either, unlike yesterday where we had 3 i think. this video is a first for myself, i've never experienced a Tricolor mode like it. i'm very happy that Nintendo finally fixed it, but also disappointed that it took them soo long to fix the Tricolor mode.

As for the hour, i think my team managed to win a couple of times. but for the most part it's an hour of White and Dark Chocolate teams kicking my team's butt.

It'd be great to hear if the mode was fixed for other players in other countries so let me know in the comments.