Welcome to another installment of Week: End Game: On! What games are the staff playing this weekend? Read on to find out!
Robert Palacios
I jumped into the Hyrule Warriors scene pretty late, but I’m glad I did! The game is surprisingly dense, with plenty of options, characters, levels, and fan service. It’s almost cruel seeing classic locations done in a new hi-res style (that Skyloft!). The wait for Zelda Wii U has become even more excruciating!
Kyle England
I’m jumping into my backlog in earnest this month to play through all these games that I need to give more attention to! I’ve got all of the games I want to play lined up in three categories (Console, Handheld, PC), and I’m only allowing myself to start playing one game from each category at a time before I can move on to another one.
So, my console game of the moment is Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker! It’s pretty cool! I can only really bring myself to play no more than a dozen levels in one sitting, but I love how clever and colorful the game is. I’m about 35 levels in right now, and I have to admire the depth and replayability.The bosses are especially impressive considering Captain Toad and Toadette’s limited abilities. I didn’t expect Treasure Tracker to be a huge showstopper, and it isn’t. However, I think in a few years folks are going to look back on this as a hidden gem for Wii U.
And on the handheld front, I have pulled out a game that some may consider a hidden gem of Game Boy Advance: Drill Dozer. I picked this game up a few years ago and never got past the first few levels. That’s going to change, as I’m now on a drilling adventure! Seriously, this game is really cool. The drill is a great tool, and it’s used in such a myriad of utilities. It makes me wish Game Freak could branch out from Pokémon more often to make stuff like this nowadays. The game also has a built-in rumble pak on a GBA cart, which is pretty cool. Hopefully Drill Dozer will come to the GBA Virtual Console so more people can play it.
Nicolas Vestre
I’m hooked on a game released on Game Boy Advance over twelve years ago: Mega Man Battle Network 2. This game was a huge part of my first summer as a teenager, way back in 2002. I couldn’t get enough of the incredible virus busting mechanics, unique battle chip system and surfing the Net with Lan Hikari and Mega Man EXE. The amount of content in this title is staggering– completing the main story is just the beginning. I replayed this game back in 2011, beat it much more easily than the first time, and used an Action Replay to unlock hard mode, only to have the save battery die on me mid-game. Originally, the only way to unlock hard mode (apart from the Action Replay) was to have two Game Boy Advance handhelds, two copies of the game, a link cable, and a huge amount of progress in both carts (not to mention many mind-numbing hours of grinding to get the necessary battle chips). It would be impossible to unlock hard mode on the Wii U Virtual Console version if it weren’t for Capcom making it very easy to get the hidden battle chips that are essential to unlocking hard mode. Now I can finally realize my ambitions and get through the coveted higher difficulty. Way to go, Capcom!
Apart from MMBN2, I downloaded Citizens of Earth but haven’t gotten an opportunity to play it. Hopefully that will change today.
And on a sad note, I can’t even remember the last time I’ve played Animal Crossing: New Leaf. The game just stopped having the appeal it once did, and I don’t have any more goals I want to achieve. Even seeing my mom still plugging along in New Leaf isn’t enough to make me want to come back. Call me lazy, but having to swap out 3DS carts every time I want to play another game after New Leaf gets to be a little annoying, especially when that Animal Crossing time can be put toward any other game I want to play.
What about you? What games will you be spending time with this weekend? Let us know in the comments!
Played Lucadian Chronicles (Wii U) almost exclusively this weekend, only grabbing a few minutes of Moon (DS) and Dark Void Zero (DSiWare) to mix things up.
Kyle, glad to hear you’re enjoying Drill Dozer! It truly is a gem of the GBA. Yeah, Game Freak hasn’t ventured much outside of Pokémon, unfortunately. But their 3DS eShop game, HarmoKnight, is also worth checking out if you haven’t already (I wrote a review for the game on another Nintendo forum back when the game released).
As for my weekend, the game I played primarily was EarthBound on Wii U VC! I do have the SNES cart, but it’s been too many years since the last time I played through the game, and what better way to play than on Wii U.