Salads

Dominion developments:

Two new summaries of the Ibushi drama below. Should be noted that there are contradictions between them so both can't be 100% true.

When Majora's Mask came out in February for NSO the whole thing was updated to version 2.0.0 which either fixed or improved a lot of the major issues. Still a work in progress but you mentioned Ocarina and I've seen it said that NSO is the way to go for that game now when before the update it was Wii VC.

Wouldn't take a lot to pass as a fresh line up after the last couple of years, but this is an actually fresh line up. Feels like a few names are going to come out of this bigger than when they went in. Thought BOSJ would be perfect for AEW to send guys that either they aren't using or need seasoning so nuts that they've sent the current hotness over to this thing. Dropping a link to the announcement vid in case anyone likes the whole announcer/mugshot deal like I do:

The first time I've laughed at hearing the KOPW stips, but on reflection also the first time I thought they were actually good. That three falls match particularly. Remember when every junior singles match would open with some amateur exchanges? We could get that again but with a point this time.

Good poster. Dangerous Tekkers as front and centre poster boys and AEW commentary wishes come true with the launch of the lawyer-friendly catchphrase Shingo Takagi PayPay.

Punching the air on behalf of the ring crew seeing all those double/triple headers after watching that Hiromu doc that The Natural linked to. G1 schedule getting kinder for them at least!

There's a full thread of translations from that commentary if anyone else is interested: This is the kind of reaction media I could eat up every week. Don't know if Shingo is going to be a regular but you get a lot of nice little insights with him because he's worked all over the place.

Don't know if it's related but when playing Darkstalkers Chronicle The Chaos Tower (PSP) I frequently found certain special moves to be either undoable or unreliable. Not sure if hardware or software to blame, or in this case whether I misread which move commands applied to the particular ruleset I was playing as. At least there are other Darkstalkers ports out there. Come to think of it Kirby's Dreamland wasn't as easy as I remembered when I went back to it, though it was originally supposed to be as forgiving as possible - 'There are still bottomless pits but you can fly'. Haven't played Triple Deluxe but from Planet Robobot I'd say it's best played as one of the opening levels in a beat em up where the conclusion is a given and the entertainment is drawn from your ability to amuse yourself by mixing up your moves from the options available. Disclaimer: I really liked Epic Yarn so maybe I'm no Kirby expert. I'm the kind of person who rates most games they play and Army of Zin was a struggle for me to put a number to. Can't remember much standing out in my memory about it be it levels, bosses or whatever (couldn't even tell you if there were bosses in fact), but I remember having a bloody good time with it which is the important bit. Maybe in another dimension it's considered an unremarkable example of the 3D slash and jump genre, but because it didn't sell much in this one that genre doesn't exist here so the game is a gem on its own. I rented Doom 64 back in the day and it was the perfect rental because the difficulty ramped up to the point where I didn't have much interest in trying to overcome it but great atmosphere before that point hit. Having seen an increase in 'people only think GoldenEye was innovative because they were on console and couldn't play Half Life' takes over the years it's a pleasant susprise to see Doom 64 of all things getting good press. It's the real Doom 3! Thanks for reminding me about Project 8. After Tony Hawks 3 there aren't as many 'more of the same' options as you'd think considering how many releases there are in the series. I had the same plan about Xenoblade X, but got cold feet because there's a chunky patch you can download which improves loading times which I would consider a must for this type of game but my Wii U storage is full and I didn't want to be in a position of having to juggle what I have on there considering that one day they might pull the plug on the servers. With Elden Ring out I'm seeing the game being mentioned alongside that and BOTW on the subject of best open worlds and now I'm full of regret and hoping for a re-release. Think I've said it before on this board but Pushmo is a proper Rubik's Cube of a puzzler. You rarely get discouraged by being stuck because you can just play around until something comes up. Which makes it sound like a picross-style 'process' puzzler where you inevitably crawl towards the end, but there's still an actual solution to find so you get your eureka moment. I have the Wii U game in my backlog but am surprised that it could be considered the best because it attracted almost zero press in contrast to the first game. Pushmo and BoxBoy are two top end puzzlers that uncharacteristically for Nintendo went the route of a new PS3/360 IP by burning through a whole trilogy in quick succession so they're played out by the time the next gen hits. Picked up a couple of Etrian games in one of the recent Atlus 3DS fire sales. Can't say I've enjoyed anything similar so no hype at all but was fearful of later finding out I liked them and being up against physical pricing as it seems the DS/3DS format is ideal. I've just looked at prices for the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series and looks like a similar thing there. I can only remember complaints about virtual console pricing but they all look decent from a 2022 angle. PS1/2 classics also. Club Nintendo did half price offers on a lot of them also, which I wisely turned down at the time so that I can get them at full price today because I didn't anticipate the selling of games to become such an outdated business model for companies that sell games.

The distinction here would be that while Destiny and Animal Crossing are well recieved neither is being lauded as one of the greatest games of all time. So I think these are likely attacks on the hype rather than the game itself. There's no obligation for anyone to buy or play it but with a metacritic score of 97 it's fair to expect something more universally appealing beyond 'If you like Dark Souls then you'll love Elden Ring'. People who didn't like roguelites were happy to try Hades because its reception painted it as something different / better / more accessible than the norm. People who dive into ER using the same logic might feel disappointed if the same problems that you're tired of hearing people complain about are still there as before - the score suggests something transcendental, not just Dark Souls 5. As someone who wasn't in love with the original Dark Souls I'm trying to work out which of those last two things this is myself.

Street Fighter 3 was also disastrous from a developmental standpoint (and was met with a poor initial reaction) so that could be a good thing. Well, maybe not for Capcom but for me when I get round to playing it years later.

Main takeaway from me is that it's good to see the roster getting back to normal, but some of those byes in the NJ Cup bracket are mental.

Very. The original Mario Strikers was one of Next Level Games' first titles and some of their founding members came from the team that made SSS.

Well that makes me feel old.

From the replies in that twitter thread (and verified): 'apparently he also forgot he isnt in japan so forgot its a 10 count not 20 in america if you go outside over there. so he got himself counted out and the match had to be re-edited'

For some reason this annoys me from a kayfabe standpoint of all things.

Playing Yooka Laylee has me nostalgic not for Banjo-Kazooie but for a certain flavour of British slang and humour that was all around when I was younger but I now realise has been absent in I think every bit of media I've consumed this century up to this point.

Tangentially related as I'm not a local, but as a non-Japanese speaker I can watch post-match interviews and appreciate those who either offer believable commentary or use the segment as an opportunity to engage the audience even if they're not convincing anyone. If neither of those things are there then there isn't really reason for me to care. Goto is a name often dropped when the subject of people who should've been IWGP champ comes up, but I can't remember him saying anything of interest either to me or seemingly himself. His character may be stoic and the notion that all these guys should have engaging comments about their latest fued-extending tag match is one born of lunacy, but still an opportunity missed and maybe that was a factor why he wasn't seen as having the same popularity potential as others. FWIW, my usual answer to the question of which NJPW names I'd like to see in AEW is the whole Ingobernables gang in some big-ass tag match. Partially because that format is more likely than fantasy booking a twenty minute singles but also because I reckon you could give them a minute to cut a group promo and viewers would come out of it more invested in their characters despite the language barrier. Was going to say that in their case having distinctive looks helps, but I guess how you come across when speaking is also part of that look. Not sure where mic skills begin and just having a character that you can communicate to the audience consistently ends, whether that's trash talking while walking down the ramp or doing a sit-down media interview. Different places of work will require and reward different routes of getting that across.

I remember reading an interview with Rey after he had just signed with WWE (likely in a magazine I didn't own while loitering in WH Smiths) where he had been asked if he wanted to be seen as the greatest cruiserweight of all time. His response was that he wanted to be seen as the greatest wrestler period. Now, it's not like Rey wasn't already iconic up to that point, but Vince had just signed him as the token good lucha thing for a sub-division of Smackdown! that everyone knew wouldn't last. I was thinking if that's not a soundbite and that's what he actually thinks then he's delusional. If you ask me to choose between him and Liger I'm leaning Liger, but years later we're having this conversation which says it all about how well he did for himself. I wasn't following WWE through the 2000s so maybe this is off the mark, but a guy like him winning Royal Rumbles and world titles in VKM's world sounded as revolutionary as what he was part of in WCW. Thanks for proving me so very wrong, Rey.

I'm assuming not, because I don't think they've had the luxury of being able to follow through any long term plans over the last two years. They may not have known who was going to win the G1, for example. It would be fascinating to see all of what could possibly be tens of booking revisions that have had to be made to date what with covid cases, covid regulations, injuries, title vacations etc. Every now and then Tony Khsn mentions how he's in regular contact with NJPW - speculation on my part but assuming there's a desire for talent to move both ways across the Pacific there may have been a plan early on that's had to be kciked down the road from 2020 to 2022 with amendments needed each time.

I'm betting that'll be his big impact sling blading arm and I've always said his fly flows didn't need to be that damn high.

Not a massive STG person but some click with me and I tend to like Cave's stuff. Playing DoDonPachi Resurrection like a normal person (ie dying plenty) but making a few cool clutch moves. After the game I'm given the option of saving a replay of the run. I'm not a sharey type so no one would see it, but I say yes anyway because I felt I had a few badass moments in there. Then I actually sit and play it back (well, fast forwarding most until the end), watch the bits I was thinking of and think 'yeah, that was badass'. Entirely pathetic but lovely that a videogame can make me feel that way at the age of 37. My new gaming emotion at age 36 was playing Outrun 2 in an arcade while a queue of people was building behind me. I'm an introvert so for me was some heart-pumping pressure to be the person who actually reached the end (I did, but the horror when a couple of cool drifts went wrong sticks with me.) Old bones, new feels.

I'm not confused at all by the current belt-holding situation, but I'm wondering how many consecutive years they'll feel the need to keep setting up these double night title match scenarios.

I for one appreciate the D.Z news blog.