What are you playing?

[Xeogred]

I can confirm that Woolly World is the best Yoshi game since Yoshi's Island. Loving it.

No run button in a sidescrolling platformer is completely screwing with me though.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I can confirm that Woolly World is the best Yoshi game since Yoshi's Island. Loving it.

No run button in a sidescrolling platformer is completely screwing with me though.

Oh it most definitely is! My wife and I co-oped the entire game and it was an absolute blast. They really took ideas and mechanics that would have filled 2 or more games and just packed it all in.

[Ack]

I finished Hell Yeah last night and decided that I should finally get around to Half-Life 2: Episode 2. I was waiting for either an Episode 3 or HL3 announcement before I touched this one, but with the events which occurred earlier this year regarding Steam staff departures and leaked potential storylines...heck with it, it's time I wrapped up the unfinished adventures of Gordon Freeman.

So now I'm carting around a garden gnome and having flashbacks to L4D2.

[Sarge]

I thought A Link Between Worlds was fantastic, but I have to admit that it doesn't bring a lot new to the table. And honestly, I've never cared; I could play that type of Zelda 'til the cows come home. The rental gimmick is one I didn't even use, I just played it normally.

[Xeogred]

You have to rent items out though. How'd you get by without doing that? Each dungeon seems to have some item icon at the entrance for what will be required. I'm at the point where I can buy them too now, but I don't know if I'll bother until I die once. Got like 3,500+ rupees.

I'm at Lorule (laughed) now and digging it a lot more. I still don't see it rivaling Link's Awakening or the Capcom games, but yeah it's easy fun and cool to see remixed LTTP areas.

[Exhuminator]

I still don't see it rivaling Link's Awakening or the Capcom games

Thank you.

[Xeogred]

I mean... not even close. I'm just happy this is coming off a lot better than Minish Cap and Phantom Hourglass to me, both were big stinkers to me.

Samus Returns blows this out of the water though. And the more I think about Samus Returns' difficulty, the more I love it. Metroid is serious business. That drill boss sucked but it felt amazing beating that game.

[PartridgeSenpai]

I thought A Link Between Worlds was fantastic, but I have to admit that it doesn't bring a lot new to the table. And honestly, I've never cared; I could play that type of Zelda 'til the cows come home. The rental gimmick is one I didn't even use, I just played it normally.

I'm in a similar boat that I think the 2D Zeldas are far and away my favorites (granted I haven't tried BotW yet). LTTP, the Oracle games and Link's Awakening are still head and shoulders above LBW for me though. LBW is a respectable 5th place though. It has some pretty stiff competition, after all! Speaking of the rental system, though, my brother and I were talking about an interesting thing yesterday.

I thought LBW's idea of giving you all the items you'll need before you go to any dungeons, before you do anything, was a brilliant concept that just wasn't executed quite right. He put forth, though, that BotW's system of giving you every item you'll need before you get off of the plateau is essentially an evolution on that system. I still haven't played BotW, but it's so nice to see that Nintendo didn't abandon that idea for Zelda

----

As for what I've been playing, I've been dipping into Youkai Watch 3: Sukiyaki the past few days and LOVING it! I commented in my Youkai Watch 2 review that it felt a lot more like Youkai Watch 1.5 than a true sequel, given the extent it borrows from the original. It's not quite Castlevania 64 to Legacy of Darkness in terms of similarity, but it's not too far away. YW3, however, really feels like an evolution on the main game's mechanics. America adds a huge new town to explore, tons of cool, wacky youkai, and most importantly a TON of new and fantastic music. I'm considering buying the OST to YW3, I love the America tunes so much. They've also completely retooled the battle system to get rid of the ring-system that the old game used for rotation. Now it's a 3x3 grid that you and the enemy both move on, and you can move your 3 guys around the field to get better angles on the enemy, get better buffs from formations, and avoid enemy supers even (of course they can avoid yours as well)! It seems like they actually took a lot of ideas from Youkai Watch Sangokushi to use in the main game, and that's just such an incredibly clever idea. I can't wait to see how things change from here

[Sarge]

You have to rent items out though. How'd you get by without doing that? Each dungeon seems to have some item icon at the entrance for what will be required. I'm at the point where I can buy them too now, but I don't know if I'll bother until I die once. Got like 3,500+ rupees.

I'm at Lorule (laughed) now and digging it a lot more. I still don't see it rivaling Link's Awakening or the Capcom games, but yeah it's easy fun and cool to see remixed LTTP areas.

Oh, right. It's been a while since I played through it. I forgot that you can either rent or buy. I think I just saved up to buy in each case, instead of renting. The game is pretty generous with its rupees.

It definitely doesn't take the place of Link's Awakening, though. It's also not quite as good as LTTP, even if the puzzles are creative and fun. Still a fun time, though; it's at least as good as the Oracle games.

[Exhuminator]

I'm currently playing three Halloween-y games, as has been my shtick for a bit now. One of them is a Famicom game, one's on Vita, and the other is a PC release. The Famicom game is Sweet Home, and man do I have a love/hate relationship with it. The hate comes from the inane amount of backtracking you have to do, because of super limited inventory space, versus tons of item based puzzles. Backtracking is one of my most hated gaming designs, and Sweet Home is chock full of it. But I wager I'm about 1/3rd the way through Sweet Home at this point. I'm not talking about the other two games until I beat them, I like to surprise you guys.