What You've Been Playing This Week

[hudson]

Street Fighter VI (PS5) - I started learning a new character. Still an amazing game.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (PS5 Pro) - This game is a treat. I feel like Square-Enix have hit me right in the nostalgic feels here. Excellent work.
Wuthering Waves 2.0 (PS5) - Free to play gacha game that is super cool looking, full of verb soup, but offers a nice chilled gacha experience.
Balatro (PS5/Steam/Mobile) - Working my wway through all stakes on all decks and also the challenges. This is GOTC.

[wakka]

It's been pretty robust (they've had enough bloody time to fix it!), but on my way to this cave, the danger music started and some bandits had started attacking a giant and his two mammoths.

The problem is that the mammoth squad were slowly raising into the sky!
The bandits were running in circles as they watched them float away like a mastodon version of "Up".
Took a snap as it was really funny.

I think it's buggered my quest though.

Yeah sounds really robust

All part of the Bethesda experience imo

[Atticus]

Dynasty Warriors Origins - Never played one of these before but I was drawn in based on the praise. It's fun. Really fun. Liking the slight variations starting to appear in the missions, keeping things fresh enough (I know this genre is sometimes criticised for repetition). Thoroughly enjoyable building the character up and getting that little bit more badass each time, juggling popcorn enemies (or peas, as my son calls them) and parrying those generals before smashing them.

Bowser's Fury - Always felt this was a bit dismissed/overlooked. I enjoyed it back when it came out and dug it out again yesterday after a bit of a hankering kicked in. It's so good. Love the open world to explore. It's just full enough of things to keep the to-do list bubbling ... and kaiju Bowser's appearances are fab. It might be a atd slight compared to a full, standalone Mario release but it's amazing while it lasts. And what a package along with 3D World. Wow.

[wakka]

Bowser's Fury is such a cool game. Now that we're inching towards a reveal of the next Mario, I'm really hoping that there's something a bit Bowser's Fury influenced about it. It was always mooted that the game was a kind of test or prototype for how a next-gen Mario might work. The potential is there.

[Atticus]

It'll be interesting which direction Nintendo take with the next 3D Mario. Much as I love the Bowser's Fury blueprint I'd love Odyssey 2 to happen.

[wakka]

I'll be slightly disappointed if it's Odyssey 2. I'm sure it'd be a brilliant game, but I'd love to see them go bigger with it. Since the first 3D Mario, the games have always focused on playgrounds. They've gradually gotten bigger in every game. I'd love to see them do a really huge one next.

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, loved Bowsers Fury and it hinted at great things in a full title. I'm happy to let Odyssey be standalone, cappy was fine but I don't need that concept expanding and I want an entry with better endgame focus and a much more consistent aesthetic which Fury hinted it.

[wakka]

Ooh, no, I'd want Cappy back! I loved the acrobatics you could perform by flinging him ahead of you and bouncing off him. An accomplished demonstration of how Mario's mechanics remain lightyears ahead of other platformers, imo.

Also, Cappy should be in Mario Kart 9. I want to play as Cappy. He could sprout lil arms to steer with.

[Dogg Thang]

I was playing MK8 again last night and, given that it was the WiiU game plus the DLC and then had a whole game's worth of DLC on top of that, one place MK9 is going to struggle with is the feeling of quantity. I don't feel like the game needs anywhere near that many tracks and, if anything, some of the more recent DLC may have diluted MK8 but I do wonder how it will feel going from that back down to a significantly smaller number of tracks.

Sorry, the talk of MK9 got me to that but this probably isn't the best thread for the thought.

[wakka]

The more recent DLC is of very mixed quality.

The original WiiU DLC was a bizarrely good deal. It was something like 8 quid for 16 of the best Mario Kart tracks ever designed.

[Dogg Thang]

The original WiiU DLC was a bizarrely good deal. It was something like 8 quid for 16 of the best Mario Kart tracks ever designed.

Those tracks are incredible. They look and play beautifully.

Yeah, the more recent DLC didn't fare so well, unfortunately.

[hudson]

New Mario is open world. It takes place in fictional Mario's Brooklyn. A bit GTA. When you discover new areas/levels, they become fast travel spots on world map akin to SMW map. You get jobs (side quests). Quests and the like will take place in Brooklyn or more often than not through portals to other worlds based off of Mario lore. Bowser sit atop of a skyscraper like Zuul from Ghostbusters. There may or not be a mechanic where you can grow to be as big as a building to fight bosses, but I am under strict NDAs.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Sorry, I thought Bowser's Fury largely sucked, and I really don't say that about 3D Mario, like, ever.

A cynical, rough-looking draft of an open-world 3D Mario (with reused SM3DW assets) cobbled together to justify re-releasing SM3DW on Switch at premium price. I lost interest in it quickly after the first Fury Bowser battle and didn't return to it.

Odyssey 2? With more of the same refreshing originality and creativity that Koizumi & Motokura brought to the table last time out?? Yes, please!!

[wakka]

You should give it another go. It's actually really fun.

[Nu-Eclipse]

You should give it another go. It's actually really fun.

Nah. Not really for me.

I prefer a proper 3D Mario and Bowser's Fury just isn't one. It's a cynical afterthought at best.

People on here trying to dismiss Odyssey is crazy. At very least, it's the third or even second best 3D Mario ever (destroys 64 and Sunshine, and Galaxy 2 is an expansion pack if we're honest). A sequel with similar quality would be amazing and I don't see how it could possibly be argued otherwise.