Yasawas

No, not really. Be aware that it is long (about 45 hours from what I've heard if you do the side stuff) but apart from a couple of five hour sessions the majority of my play is on the train, half an hour each way, it's very suited to picking up when you have a minute. The story is fluff, save points are numerous and there are no lengthy cutscenes so it works quite well.

Ah OK, in that case I'll be interested to see how you feel about it after the first couple of proper boss fights. This might be the way I've specced my dudes, the flexibility of which is where the combat really shines, but constantly defaulting isn't a viable strategy for me and hasn't been for some time.

I'm 30 hours in and loving the combat in Bravely Default, I can't remember what it's like at your stage currently but it does add enough stuff to keep me occupied and the job system is very well done I think. I enjoyed Persona 4 too but I'm struggling to remember what was good about the combat specifically - it was all just find a weakness, exploit it, keep doing it and then all pile on was it not?

I just played through Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons to confirm that I do in fact, have a heart of solid stone. It is fun - the puzzles are easy enough that you're always moving forward, there's some nice variety in them, and the setting is right up my street (not literally) but I was continually reminded of Ico and Sands of Time while playing it and they're both far better ways to spend an afternoon so that realisation kinda hurt it. The story didn't do much for me except for one nice wee bit about two-thirds of the way in and the ending did not have the impact I'd been led to expect. Not bad, but glad I only paid the price of a pint for it in the PSN sale.

I am all about that Kirby, Sayonara Umihara Kawase, Yoshi's Island (which I suspect probably looks good on the console, the same way I thought ALBW looked bad in screenshots and lovely in practice) and I'll probably buy the Layton x Phoenix Wright game even though I don't like Phoenix Wright. That's all Q1? Lovely. Europe did not get an announcement for Chibi Robo which was disappointing as I loved the GameCube game although how much relevance that has to the 3DS one anyway I don't know. Bravely Default is utterly incredible so far, I'm about 20 hours in and while the story is only slightly above-average JRPG fare it has a handful of well-written characters who keep the story scenes bearable and the combat system just keeps evolving in lovely, interesting ways. Sadly of the 100 or so StreetPasses I've had since I got it only two other people have been playing it, I suspect it has done poorly here.

I can't access any gaming sites or YouTube at work but people on Twitter seemed to be getting excited about some of the stuff in this Direct so I'm excited. All I know for sure is that motherfucking Wii Sports Golf is out on the eShop this week. Yessssssssss. Edit: GOLF. YES. Also I bought NES Remix not knowing what the hell it was and it's pretty good. It's a load of wee challenges based around classic NES games which is cool, and it reminds me of Sega MegaDrive Collection that I bought for the PS3 of all things. I bought that for the nostalgia but it turns out the guy who designed the trophies was actually a genius and realising that basically nobody in 2010 would be playing the games to completion based the trophy accumulation around completing intersting challenges in each game that could be done in 20 minutes or so and I loved it so much I ended up getting them all. This is very similar, and nicely presented and if only it had friend leaderboards Nintendo for fucks sake come on.

VVVVVV, Steamworld Dig and Crimson Shroud are my favourite eShop games, they're all under a tenner. I think I might get the Friday Monsters thing myself before the price goes back up.

Double post, too much excitement.

January looks like a great European PS+ month to me, I've a Vita and a PS3 and have played none of what they're offering. I never looked the Soul Sacrifice demo much at the time when it was all hyped up but I meant to go back to it at some point as I didn't give it much of a chance. In summary: Leaving PS Plus: 24th December: Grid 2 24th December: Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen 24th December: Sonic and Allstars Racing Transformed 8th January: Contrast Entering PS Plus: 24th December: DmC Devil May Cry (PS3) 24th December: Borderlands 2 (PS3) 24th December: Soul Sacrifice (PSV) 24th December: Blazblue Continuum Shift Extend (PSV) 8th January: Don’t Starve (PS4)

One account per console, and you'll lose any funds you have in other currencies.

Friend codes still exist for the time being, hopefully they'll phase them out unless there's some reason they can't. NNID provides a Miiverse profile and is required to use the eShop now, if you have a Wii U too then the two accounts now share the same balance. My Miiverse profile, I give out Yeahs like candy.

Right at the point an attack will hit you press whatever your equivalent of the DualShock's L2 would be - your character swings your shield out and if you time it right you get a sweet noise and can riposte with R1 (basic attack) button. I find it's actually harder to do on a lot of the early enemies as their movement and patterns are so erratic and I never bothered getting good at it despite doing about eight playthroughs of the game so it's not vital. It doesn't work on all attacks and can only really be used on humanoid enemies.

I agree. I died half a dozen times or so, I thought the difficulty was spot on and the dungeons were a good length. I don't play a Zelda game to struggle to overcome enemies, I play them to explore and feel smart when I solve a puzzle and it does all that perfectly.

I don't think any enemeies scale, do they? Pretty sure everything has a set HP except for bosses when you summon people which does raise it a bit.

The key is worth buying considering how inexpensive it is but you're a while away from finding the locked door so you don't need to get it just yet. My approach to gear on my first playthrough was to hang off buying anything until I hit a wall and needed every little advantage, you'll pick up plenty along the way and nothing you can buy at this point is enough of an improvement to be worth it. Upgrading is more important than buying new gear, you'll get to that point soon, and my first playthrough was completed using a weapon I picked up in the second area and just continually upgraded over the 60 hours or so. Encumbrance is only in play in terms of equipped gear incidentally, so your inventory can be as full of as much shit as you want and the heater shield is badass and you're lucky to start with it.

My Twitter name has an underscore on the end and it eats away at me every day. Miiverse is a thing on 3DS now and it works and that's cool. It's easy to be cynical about it but I love it because it's great to be able to play a game and notice a thing and post it to the great unwashed and receive nothing but positivity and joy back in reply. Nintendo should moderate the entire internet. It's also really good when you get stuck or don't understand something and I've received a lot of assistance from random dudes in the Monster Hunter community with a lot less bullshit, elitism and arrogance than you'd find in most other places online where I could ask the same. Give it a chance. Also I did the update first thing this morning and skimmed all the text but did I see you need a NNID to use the eShop now? Meaning they have no excuse not to tie your purchases to it now like they used to when it was your Club Nintendo account? I know it's not implemented yet but joyfully that's a hint they'll do it.

I'm as surprised as anyone but I think the answer is Persona 4 Golden. I almost watched an anime after I finished it. Anime! It's been a pretty ludicrous year for handheld gaming with Monster Hunter, Fire Emblem, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Bravely Default, Theatrhythm, Crimson Shroud and Animal Crossing all being great but the one hard copy Vita game I've bought in the year I've owned it is the winner. Game Not From This Year That I Beat This Year of the Year - Demon's Souls, two platinums son. Honourable mentions to Virtue's Last Reward and Super Mario Galaxy 2.

I bought Sonic last week and am having a great time with it, what they've put out for £4 thoroughly shames Nintendo and their lazy Virtual Console releases. I hope they do the sequels the same way. I've put two hours into Bravely Default so far and it's pretty fantastic. Starts off as a standard JRPG, albeit a very pretty one, but it chucks so many interesting mechanics at you very quickly that when I started to get my head around the strategic possibilities in combat I went actively looking for fights to mess about with stuff which is a first for me. The StreetPass integration looks rad too if I'm understanding it right, and it even pulls random folk from the internet in their place so if you live in an area where you don't get any passes you can still make use of it. The voice acting is appalling but you can't have everything and Japanese is only a button-press away. Speaking of StreetPass this most recent update to the relay service to give you the most recent six people to have passed the same point is so broken here it's annoying me. I frequently get all English people now which seems unlikely, and never the same one twice. I'd rather have had the same five hardcore 3DS commuter bros every day than 10 randoms from across the border but I suppose they've got to sell those additional StreetPass games somehow.

I'm sure they've promised Link to the Past for Wii U VC before the end of the year. Weird it's not available prior to the release of this but Nintendo. Oh it is, I'm seven hours in and enjoying this far more than I did LttP. I've done four dungeons now and a whole lot of exploring and I'm having a thoroughly marvellous time of it. In retrospect I think I tried to rush my way through LttP which accounts for a lot of my distaste for it and I will be giving it another go if it comes out on the VC but I'm grateful at least that I know my way around a bit and I get some of the references back to it in here. I wasn't sure the renting aspect would work but now it's opened up and I've died once I think I like it - no more pick up item in dungeon then use said item for numerous puzzles in dungeon and then expose weak spot of boss. Money is never an issue so I needn't have worried about that either. I think it looks great too and the music is superb and I like that they gave us a reversible cover so I could hide that garish golden monstrosity I was confronted with on Friday afternoon. This game is very good.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii) - More ideas in 90 minutes than any other game I can think of manages in their duration. Utterly ludicrous levels of creativity on display here and the way it seamlessly switches from "basic" Mario 64esque 3D platforming, to gimmicks based around running about a tiny planet with its own gravitational pull, to a straight 2D segment, to into-the-screen chase sequence never ceases to amaze. Here's my favourite. The truly surprising thing to me based on how long it is (took me 14 hours 20 to see the credits, but there are plenty of stars left to get) is how rarely you do the same thing twice. Each galaxy has its own wee gimmick to it but once you've got the star or two on offer there you're whisked away somewhere entirely different with a new set of rules. There are loads of new power ups, the bosses are actually fun to fight, the controls are perfect and the music is sublime. I'm looking forward to 3D World greatly this Christmas but that it won't be a straight sequel to this in HD is a little disappointing to me now, and I think I've finally been put off ever playing Super Mario 64 again as I've been thinking about for the last 15 years. One of the absolute best things.

I had no idea what Bravely Default was other than a terrible title but I fired the demo up there and apparently it's a really stunning looking JRPG that might be right up my street but I don't know yet because it's late and it explains itself really badly and I'll need to approach it in more of a mood to read things. The demo is separate from the game but you carry things over to the full release so I have a reason to persevere. That little reel of eShop stuff they showed in the middle of the direct today looked promising on the whole, especially that football management thing, so much stuff I'd never heard of and I was pleased to see how many Wii U titles they had for us. Also I am proud of myself for turning off at the end when they showed Super Mario 3D World - no Shibata, you will not take the shine my Christmas day with your spoily videos no matter how politely you ask and how much I want to watch. Please understand.

It's been a few months since I popped in here to lament my failure to get on with a SNES classic and now I ask: am I the only one who doesn't like Super Castlevania IV? I've been struggling through it for the last few days but I'm not getting any enjoyment out of it at this point (stage 8 or thereabouts) and I think I'm done as it's getting a bit hard now and my desire to plod on just to see what it's like is definitely waning. I don't really get the appeal at all - not a fan of the controls, the sheer numbers of flying enemies I'm too crap to be able to hit consistently makes me want to scream sometimes and it's just room after room of the same thing really with some beautifully ugly Mode 7 effects to break it up every half hour or so. I've actually been after this for years but had set a limit of £30 I wasn't willing to go over so it's sad how little I've ended up getting out of it, I was so hyped.

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD - Had this on the Gamecube but stopped playing at some point before the final main dungeon so I missed the Triforce quest I've heard so much about since. I rather enjoyed that bit so I'm going to say this was a successful remake, and the addition of the faster sail definitely helped out too. The dungeons were great I thought, and I felt like a genius for being able to play a game like this without getting stuck and having to Google an answer so it's probably on the easy side, the characters were entertaining and even the sidequest stuff, which I never bother with in any game, was interesting enough that I dabbled with some of it. Obviously it was already the most beautiful video game of all time so the sexifying of the graphics has propelled it into hitherto undreamt-of realms of unimaginable splendour. Utterly delightful. I was almost at the end by the time I discovered I could export full-res screenshots through the internet browser which is sad. I have Skyward Sword on the shelf and one of the Bitsocket boys has been going on about Oracle of Ages on Twitter all week but I'm going to save myself for the 3DS one and then decide where to go from there. The scores as it stands though: WW > OoT > LA > LttP New Super Mario Bros. U - It's the best 2D Mario in 20 years. It does everything the old games did as well as they did but with the addition of the Star Coin mechanic which I like but don't want to be punished for not going for, as I like to leave that for the end. I was worried there would come a point where it would tell me I needed so many to access a level or something but that never happens thankfully. Difficulty pitched just right, some levels were pretty challenging but never to Donkey Kong Country Returns degrees, great to see Mario in HD and the final boss was an enjoyable wee shot of nostalgia. I thought I was sick of these and only picked it up out of a sense of obligation but I'm glad I did.

Me too, and the way they've turned the 3DS around from the state it was in 12-18 months ago is part of what inspired me to get a Wii U. Even if nobody else is making stuff for it Nintendo alone can make it worthwhile, and with Smash Bros, Donkey Kong Country and Mario Kart next year that's a strong start. Now make an F-Zero please! It's been over ten years now.

I thought The Wonderful 101 would be my next purchase but you've all got me wanting Pikmin now. I bought one of these last week too after a charitable UK retailer reduced the premium Zelda pack to £199.99 for a day which is the sweet spot. I'd had the money saved for a PS4 but had been getting increasingly concerned by the total lack of anything interesting coming out on it any time soon, and the Wii U is cheaper with a few strong titles going for it now so couldn't help myself. I've seen a few folk do the same recently which is encouraging as it's a lovely bit of hardware with some great ideas and I don't like to see Nintendo struggle. Zelda is superb and Super Mario U is far more enjoyable than I'd expected, but Monster Hunter lets the side down framerate wise which is a pity although I've only transferred my 3DS save over and pissed about for five minutes so maybe it improves. The Nintendo platforms lineup for the next month is pretty special - November has Layton, Zelda and 3D World, probably the most fun-looking game I've seen all year, and I am absurdly enthused for this despite being a fully-grown adult man.